


There Was No Other Way

by sea_spirit



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (mostly) Canon Compliant, F/M, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 08 Finale, and he isn't an addicted idiot, except Jaime doesn't die, making sense of the nonsensical (I hope)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22060453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sea_spirit/pseuds/sea_spirit
Summary: Two months after Bran Stark was crowned King of the Six Kingdoms, he tells Brienne what really happened in the dungeons of the Red Keep after King's Landing burned.And the more she learns about the truth, the more it changes everything.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 379
Kudos: 612





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance for the ridiculous length of this author’s note. But, given the large amount of post-season 8 fic and people’s preferences for reading it (or not), I thought it might be helpful to let you know up front what you’ll find here. 
> 
> This is, technically, a fix-it fic. It might be a little different from most (though I admit I don’t know that, since I have been avoiding reading it almost entirely until I could get this written), because I have done my best to make it _surfacely_ canon-compliant, with the exception of Jaime’s death. Which, also technically, I don’t take as canon—I may have seen a body, but I have no proof it was a dead one. *blows raspberries at D&D*
> 
> Anyway, this approach means that, while I am not changing or rewriting canon scenes, I am adding to them/changing the motivation behind them in the most believable way I can without altering the “facts” of what we saw on screen. Underlying this premise is the very important idea that not everything we or the characters saw was exactly as it seemed.
> 
> My reasoning for writing it this way is very personal. Someday, perhaps, when enough time has passed, I may want to rewatch all or parts of the show that introduced me to and made me fall in love with Jaime and Brienne. One of the things that devastated me most about the ending was not just that it in itself was so terrible, but that it robbed me of the joy I had taken in the show and JB’s romantic journey as a whole. Because, yes, we still have the books, but I loved the show, despite its flaws. The show brought me to the characters. The show brought me to fandom. The show brought me here.
> 
> So, this fic is my attempt to steal at least a little of that joy back. To do that, I needed something I could read after the final episode credits roll—an _extended_ ending, a _better_ ending, at least for the two characters I care most about. An ending that honors Jaime’s character development instead of destroying it, that makes Brienne’s appointment to the Kingsguard less horrible, that recognizes the deep love that exists between these two characters. An ending that gives them a chance at a happy ending, because I don’t see the point otherwise. 
> 
> This is what I came up with.
> 
> Cover art generously provided by the talented hardlyfatal. :)

Most days, she managed.

She kept her head up and her shoulders square and did her duty to the king, just as she had sworn she would. She focused resolutely on her work, on their new monarch’s safety, on doing whatever she could to ensure a better future for the people of the Six Kingdoms. 

Most days, she could ignore the furtive looks that Tyrion—and even, on occasion, Bronn—slanted in her direction across the small council table when they thought she couldn’t see. 

But that day was not most days. 

That day, during their routine discussion of the ongoing repairs to the city, Grand Maester Tarly informed them that excavations and repairs had finally begun in the castle dungeons, starting with the caverns at the very lowest level of the Red Keep.

The caverns where Tyrion had found him. Found _them_.

A familiar knot twisted in her chest as the Grand Maester explained that, as part of their work to connect the castle to what would eventually be the new city sewers, the builders had already unblocked all the doorways and started clearing away the rubble. 

The rubble that had taken his life. 

_Jaime_. 

Brienne dropped her eyes to the dark, glossy surface of the table, pressing her palms into her thighs and willing a placid expression to her face. When she was certain no trace of emotion remained to betray her, she lifted her gaze once more, only to find the Hand of the King looking at her from his position at the head of the table. 

Tyrion’s brow had lowered so far that it completely obscured the tops of his clear green eyes, which were, to her surprise, completely devoid of pity. Instead, they flickered with a puzzling blend of concern and uncertainty and guilt. 

He kept looking at her that way for the entirety of the meeting, long after talk had shifted to the ports and the fleet and the stonemasons’ progress on the reconstruction of the city gate, his jaw periodically twitching as though he wanted to say something.

But Brienne knew he wouldn’t. 

He’d been so careful not to speak of it. He would hardly speak to her at all, in fact, outside their dealings in the small council chamber or on matters that directly involved the security of the king. 

The only reason she even knew Tyrion had been the one to find their bodies was because of the raven that had come to Winterfell after Daenerys’s death—the raven that had summoned them to King’s Landing. Before it arrived, Brienne had thought she’d cried all of the tears she had inside her, but she’d been wrong. 

To her horror, she had nearly cried again when Podrick divulged everything he’d managed to learn only three days after Lady Sansa had been given dominion over the North and Bran Stark hailed as king of the remaining Six Kingdoms. He’d been reluctant to tell her, that much was clear, but he also seemed to understand that she needed to know—and that it would be far easier to hear it from him than from someone else’s heedless lips. 

So, over an ill-advised cup of Arbor Gold, he’d explained that Jaime had been captured on his way back to King’s Landing, that Tyrion had freed him and smuggled him into the city in order to ring the bells in surrender and get the queen to safety. Tyrion had also arranged to have a boat waiting in some secret place where a tunnel from the dungeons opened onto Blackwater Bay. A boat Jaime had intended to sail to Pentos, where he and his sister could start a new life. Brienne still remembered the ache in Podrick’s kind brown eyes when he’d added, “with their child.” 

The words had slipped like a blade between her ribs, and she’d had to look away while she fought against the rising tide of her tears. 

It had almost been worse than hearing how they’d been trapped in the bowels of the keep, how Tyrion had found them there, crushed by bricks that had fallen from the ceiling, dead in each other’s arms. 

Almost. 

Brienne never asked Podrick where he’d heard the tale—some northern soldiers, she suspected, or perhaps Lord Davos—but it was too painful not to be the truth. 

She’d never asked Tyrion about it either, although she often wondered whether he had arranged for someone to take his siblings to Casterly Rock, to be entombed in their ancestral home, or if he’d kept Jaime’s golden hand. She knew he had Widow’s Wail—she’d seen it in his chambers, once, slung over a chair, when she’d gone to consult with him about the final two appointments to the Kingsguard. 

He’d seen her looking at it, she knew, but he hadn’t acknowledged it. He wouldn’t even say his brother’s name.

No one would, not within her hearing, but it was there inside her mind, nonetheless.

 _Jaime_.

It lingered like an infinite echo, resounding in time with her footsteps as Brienne left the small council chamber and walked out into the sun. She intended to return to the White Sword Tower, but her feet took her to the godswood instead. 

She didn't stop walking until she arrived at a familiar stone terrace overlooking a steep, wooded slope and, beyond it, the shimmering blue water of Blackwater Bay. Brienne didn’t know how that little scrap of land had escaped Drogon’s fiery destruction, but she was glad it had. Other than the newly greening trees, their pink blossoms dancing against the sky, it still looked much the same as it had the last time she’d been there. 

The memory of Jaime leaning against the rail to her left, arguing with her as the two of them looked down the hill at Lady Sansa, was so visceral and crisp that it felt as though he stood beside her now. Like she might be able to touch him, to feel the soft brown leather of his coat, if only she stretched out her hand.

But then, it often did. 

How could it not, when she lived where he’d lived and slept where he’d slept in the Lord Commander’s chambers? When she sat at his table in the White Sword Tower, in the very room where he’d given her his sword and her armor, where she’d pledged to find Sansa for Lady Catelyn _and_ for him. When she wrote in the book he’d written in, walked the halls he’d walked, and stood where he’d stood for more than twenty years, guarding the king. 

Brienne hadn’t fully comprehended how difficult it would be when she’d consented to Sansa’s request that she remain in King’s Landing as Lord Commander of her brother's Kingsguard. She’d been too busy ruminating on her many other concerns about accepting the post—the fact that she was in the sworn service of the new Queen of the North chief among them. If she was going to spend years of her life guarding a monarch, Brienne would have preferred it to be the young woman she’d already vowed to protect. 

Sansa, however, had been insistent. “You have fulfilled your oath, Ser Brienne,” she’d said. “I have nothing to fear in the North, but I’ll rest easier leaving my brother in this city knowing someone I trust is here to defend him.” 

Even then, it had taken Tyrion throwing his support behind Sansa’s plea, as well as offering assurances that he intended to make drastic changes to the rules governing the Kingsguard—changes he wanted her to help shape—to convince her to agree. 

Brienne still hadn’t decided whether it had been the right decision, whether being in King’s Landing was better or worse than being at Winterfell, where the memories were fewer but would have cut more deeply. 

In all likelihood, it wouldn’t have mattered. Brienne knew she would always carry him with her, even without a city or an oath or a sword to remind her. 

_It’s yours. It will always be yours_.

Brienne heard the words as clearly as though Jaime had been there to speak them aloud, and she curled her fingers instinctively around Oathkeeper’s hilt.

As she stared out at the bay, his voice washed over her again and again and again—words that cut, words she thought she’d forgotten, words that meant more to her than any others she’d ever heard. 

And she didn’t try to silence them. 

_You’re much uglier in daylight._

_Has anyone ever told you you’re as boring as you are ugly?_

_You move well, for a great beast of a woman._

_No wonder Renly died with you guarding him._

_Jaime. My name’s Jaime._

_Get behind me._

_I’m taking her to King’s Landing, unless you kill me._

_I hope I got your measurements right._

_They say the best swords have names._

_Goodbye, Brienne._

_Well, I’m proud of you._

_I’d be honored to serve under your command, if you’ll have me._

_Arise, Brienne of Tarth, a knight of the Seven Kingdoms._

_I’ve never slept with a knight before._

_She’s hateful, and so am I._

Brienne squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t stop his haunted face from swimming before her in the dark. 

A tremble shuddered through her chin as she recalled the shock in his eyes when she’d reached for his face, the soft rasp of his beard against her palms, the way his thumb had stroked her wrist just before he pulled her hand away. She would never forget how utterly broken he’d looked as he said those final words. How broken she’d felt as she watched him ride through the gate.

Blinking against the sudden burning threat of tears, Brienne shoved the memory away. But that only made way for a swarm of others—too many to hold at bay. 

The wind on her face as she paddled down the Trident, Jaime’s stream of insults rising to her ears from the bottom of the boat. The mocking slash of his teeth as their blades kissed on that bridge in the middle of the Riverlands. The agonizing sound of his scream when Locke took his hand. The tears sluicing down his face when he bared his soul to her at Harrenhal as the steam rose and swirled around them.

The strain in her limbs when she pulled him from the bear pit after he offered her his own back so she could climb out first. The golden light in the White Sword Tower when he first placed Oathkeeper into her hands and the red glow in his tent at Riverrun when she tried to return it. The frantic, demanding question in his eyes when they locked with hers at the Dragonpit. The low pitch of his voice when he unsheathed his sword and urged her to kneel before him. The steadiness and safety she felt fighting with him at her back, even as they were surrounded by death itself. 

The warm, firm length of his body molded against her, sliding inside her. The gentleness in his fingers when he swept the hair back from her brow. The look in his eyes, burning and intent on her face. The fond curl of his lips just before he pressed them, hot and greedy, to her own. 

No matter what had happened afterward, those moments—the feeling of something long-denied sparking between them, forging them together—hadn’t been a lie. It might not have been enough to overcome the darkness he’d seemed so certain he still carried, or the pull of his golden twin, but it had been real. 

As angry and wounded as she was over the choice he’d made, in the end, Brienne couldn’t bring herself to regret her own. Even when the pain of his leaving and his loss was most acute, when allowing herself to remember felt like poking at an infection that refused to heal, she wasn’t sorry.

She’d loved him so much, for so long, and Jaime had, well…he’d _wanted_ her, at least, even if only for a little while. And Brienne had never thought she’d _be_ wanted by someone she cared so much about. So she’d allowed herself to have him. 

The time they had shared, the best and the worst of it, would always belong to her. No one could take that away—not even Jaime. 

A hollow, metallic _plink_ sounded from below her chin, followed by one more, and then another, like rain tinkling on a rooftop. Brienne looked down and was startled by the sight of her own tears dripping onto her breastplate. 

She let them fall freely for a few more seconds, feeling something loosen deep inside her chest, only moving to wipe them away when a distant crunch and then a nearer whir warned her that she wouldn't be alone for much longer. 

Brienne knew the sound well, so she wasn’t surprised when the king’s voice spoke from very close behind her. “He was right, you know.” 

She turned to find King Bran in his wheeled chair, a smiling Ser Podrick—the king’s favorite escort—at his back.

“Who was, Your Grace?” she asked.

“Ser Jaime,” he said, and Brienne flinched. “We don’t get to choose who we love.”

A chill prickled through her limbs as she looked down into the king’s calm, dark eyes. She should have been used to his uncanny ability to pull things from the past; she’d watched him do it to others, many times. But she’d never expected he would have cause to do it to her. 

The king tipped his head slightly to one side as he considered her. “And you love him still, even after all that’s happened.”

Brienne folded her lips together, trying to decide how to answer. She couldn’t say yes—she _wouldn’t_ , not out loud, not in front of Podrick—but she also couldn’t say no. It would be pointless and dishonorable to lie. 

As though he could see inside her mind as well as her memories, King Bran nodded thoughtfully. “I’m glad.” 

“Why, Your Grace?” She didn’t see why it should matter, especially not to him. 

“Because he loves you, too.”

Her throat constricted around a thick lump of grief, but she forced herself to swallow it. She’d thought, for those few brief weeks in Winterfell, that he might have, but now… 

“Maybe,” Brienne eventually murmured, the plates of her armor rattling slightly as she shrugged. “I suppose I’ll never know for sure.”

An enigmatic smile curved the young king’s lips. “Yes, you will. He’ll tell you himself.”

Brienne darted a glance at Podrick, who seemed just as nonplussed as she was. Had the king taken leave of his senses? Did his powers extend to communicating with spirits from beyond the grave? 

“I don’t understand, Your Grace.” She shook her head. “Ser Jaime is dead.”

“No, Ser Brienne,” the king replied. “Jaime Lannister is very much alive.”

“That’s impossible,” she blurted, immediate and certain. But as the king stared up at her with his usual tranquility, his eyes as mellow and serious as ever, Brienne realized the folly of her words. 

If he said it was true—with everything he knew, everything he could see—then it must be true. And if it was, if Jaime was alive… 

A breath left her in a hot, noisy rush, and her chest gave such a violent squeeze she thought it might collapse in on itself. Podrick gaped at her over the king’s head, and when Brienne stretched her arm toward the stone rail, needing something solid beneath her fingers, her former squire twitched forward as though he intended to come to her side. She held up her hand, grateful for his intention but unable to bear it, unable to bear anything as confusion and anger and absurd, overwhelming joy tumbled together inside her. 

“But Lord Tyrion _found_ them,” Podrick said, his eyebrows bunching together as he looked between Brienne and the king. “They all said he did.” 

“Yes, Ser Podrick, he did,” the king acknowledged. “After the city fell, Lord Tyrion went down to the dungeons of the Red Keep, to a place filled with dragon skulls where he’d met his brother once before. Ser Jaime’s golden hand was sticking up from the rubble, and when Lord Tyrion knelt down to dig through the bricks, he found him there, sprawled across the queen.”

Podrick frowned. “But you said—”

The king patiently held up his hand. “He mourned them both,” he continued, “slamming a brick to the ground three times in his anger and grief before he began to weep. And then, when his tears had dried and he knew he could stay no longer, Lord Tyrion reached out to touch his brother’s face, and Ser Jaime opened his eyes.” 

Brienne’s breath stilled as the king’s gaze, knowing and oddly soft, glided up to hers.

“He opened his eyes, and he said your name.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thanks to katykrash for her support and feedback as I hashed this out. It wouldn't have been possible without her.
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so very much for your response to the first chapter! Your kind comments and kudos were incredibly motivating as I wrestled with a few sticky bits in this one. I'm so lucky to be part of this wonderful fandom! <3
> 
> As always, thanks to katykrash for her support and feedback and general hand-holding.

Brienne felt as though her armor was shrinking around her, squeezing her in a metal grip from all sides. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t make sense of the king’s words—no matter how loudly they rang in her ears. 

“ _My_ name?” she rasped, appalled by the tremor in her voice. “But why?” 

“That is a question only he can answer,” King Bran replied. “My abilities allow me to see _what_ happened, Ser Brienne. Not why.”

“Then…can you see where he is now, Your Grace?” she asked, consumed by a sudden need to know everything he _could_ tell her. “How he is?”

“He’s well enough,” the king said, a slight furrow forming on his forehead. “Though he hasn’t been eating quite as much as they would like.”

Before Brienne could ask who _they_ were, King Bran continued, “And as for where he is… At the moment, he’s on a boat sailing out of the Bay of Crabs.”

“The Bay of Crabs? He’s been in the Riverlands?”

Jaime had probably spent more time tromping across those forests and hills during the last ten years than anywhere else in Westeros, aside from King’s Landing. Brienne couldn’t imagine a less likely place for him to go unnoticed for so long.

And he’d been so _close_. 

“Yes,” the king confirmed. “In a safe place of penitence and contemplation on an island near the mouth of the Trident.” His eyes took on a pensive, faraway look Brienne had seen in them countless times before. “He’s been waiting for weeks for his brother to summon him to King’s Landing, but it seems his patience has run out. His boat departed Maidenpool a short while ago.” 

Brienne sucked in a slow breath, trying to wade through all the questions swirling in her mind. It didn’t take long before she landed on the one she most wanted answered. “He’s coming here?” 

She felt both impossibly warm and icy cold at the thought.

The king, his brown eyes once again sharp and focused on her face, nodded slowly. “Lord Tyrion will tell you the rest. If you go now, you’ll find him in the small council chamber.”

Brienne hesitated, desperate for more information and not wanting to wait even as long as it would take her to climb the hill to get it. “But, Your Grace, surely _you_ could—”

“Go, Ser Brienne,” the king interrupted, his tone kind but firm. “He should be the one to tell you. Ser Podrick will see that I get back.” 

Podrick, his brow rumpled in concern, shrugged at her from where he stood behind the king, then nodded encouragingly toward the castle. 

Brienne’s heartbeat throbbed in her ears as she turned and began to hurry up the path, still reeling from everything the king had said. And from what it meant.

Jaime was alive, and she was going to see him again.

Every inch of her body tingled with longing at the idea of being near him, of seeing that he was, indeed, still drawing breath in this world. But when Brienne thought of how it would feel to look into his eyes, her throat tightened and her chest burned and she briefly wondered how she would bring herself to face him at all. 

They’d parted and reunited many times over the years, but never like this. Never after she’d known what it was like to feel his lips and his body and his breath mingling with hers. Never after she’d begged him to stay with her, and he’d left anyway. 

What would she say to him? What would _he_ say to her? And why in the seven hells hadn’t Tyrion told her the truth?

It had been four months since the city had fallen to the fire and blood of Daenerys Targaryen, and all that time, Tyrion had _known_. He’d known, and he had kept it from her. He had allowed her to believe that Jaime was dead.

More than anything, she wanted to know why. Why hadn’t he confided in her? Why was Jaime coming to King’s Landing? Why had he said her name? 

The questions were still on her lips by the time she reached the castle, accompanied by a quiet ire simmering beneath her skin. The only thing that kept her from marching into the small council chamber and demanding answers was the low hum of voices floating down the hallway as she approached.

Brienne paused in the doorway, her gaze falling first on Tyrion, sitting in the Hand’s chair and glowering down at a large book that lay open before him. Grand Maester Tarly sat beside him, in Lord Davos’s usual seat, scribbling notes on a piece of parchment. 

“He could have at least _mentioned_ that I held the Mud Gate during the Battle of Blackwater Bay,” Tyrion grumbled. “And who does he think engineered the wildfire that destroyed Stannis Baratheon’s fleet?” 

“I’m not sure, My Lord Hand,” the Grand Maester said, his quill racing across the page. “Shall I ask him?”

“No, Sam, that won’t be necessary. Just tell him…” His words trailed away, and Brienne took advantage of the opening to stride into the room. Tyrion glanced up at the sound of her footsteps on the stone floor. “Ah, Ser Brienne. What can I do for you?”

“I need to speak with you,” she said crisply. “Privately.”

His eyebrows rose at her tone, an amused curiosity flitting across his face. “Certainly. I’m just giving the Grand Maester some notes to send to Archmaester Ebrose about his little history book. If you’ll permit me a few moments, I’ll be—”

“No,” she cut in, more loudly than she’d intended, and the scratch of Grand Maester Tarly’s quill fell silent. “This is more important than that foolish book.”

Tyrion’s expression instantly sobered. “Is it about the king?”

“It is not.” Brienne took a few steps closer to the head of the table, until she stood near enough to read the open book. “It’s about Jaime.”

“I see.” His throat bobbed. “Sam, if you’ll excuse us.”

“Of course, my lord.” The Grand Maester scrambled up from his chair, his robes swaying as he gathered up his parchment and scurried from the room.

As soon as he’d gone, Tyrion slumped back in his seat. “Who told you?”

“The king.” Brienne peered down at him with narrowed eyes. “Who _else_ knows?”

“No one,” Tyrion insisted. Then, a little guiltily, he added, “Aside from Bronn and Davos.”

Brienne’s temper spiked, and her fingers flexed involuntarily around Oathkeeper’s hilt. “You told _them_ and not me?” 

“I didn’t have a choice,” he replied, his eyes wide and earnest. “I would have never gotten him out of King’s Landing without their help.”

For a moment, a rush of surprise—especially at the idea that _Bronn_ would help anyone unless he had something to gain—drowned out her anger. But it didn’t stay submerged for long. 

“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell _me_.”

Tyrion grimaced. “No, it doesn’t, and it doesn’t excuse it, either. But I _did_ have my reasons, I promise you. Reasons for which I owe you an explanation.” He gestured at the nearest chair, where Bronn typically sat at Tyrion’s right hand. “Please, Ser Brienne, sit. Sit and I’ll tell you everything that is in my power to tell.” 

Brienne glared at him as indignation and doubt and fierce curiosity warred within her. She had absolutely no reason to trust him, to hear him out, not after he’d deliberately withheld the truth. But the sorrow in his eyes seemed genuine, and the king _had_ sent her to find him—specifically so _Tyrion_ could be the one to tell her.

And she knew she wouldn’t be able to rest until she’d heard everything. 

With a dubious huff, Brienne yanked the chair out from the table and lowered herself into it, carefully arranging Oathkeeper to her side before fixing Tyrion with a level stare. “You can start by telling me what happened after you found him in the dungeons. How badly was he hurt, and why has he been in the Riverlands all this time? Is he really on his way here?” 

His face went slightly ashen. “Did the king tell you all that, too?” 

“He wouldn’t have needed to,” she said coldly, “if you’d done it first.” 

Tyrion raised his hands in surrender. “Yes, you’re quite right.” 

He asked her, then, what she knew about what had happened when Jaime rode south, about his capture and how he’d gotten into the city. Brienne told him all she’d heard from Podrick, and Tyrion smiled.

“He always was a clever lad. He got most of it right, too. All except for the end.” Tyrion sighed, staring off into the distance. “I truly did think Jaime was dead, at first. Cersei certainly was—believe me, after my brother opened his eyes, I checked. Repeatedly.” 

Brienne gritted her teeth, trying to force the image of the two of them—covered in dust and blood, entwined beneath a pile of bricks—from her mind. 

“When I dug him out of that rubble, I realized he’d been wounded, badly,” Tyrion went on. “He’d been hit in the head by the falling debris, I was fairly certain his right arm was broken, and as soon as I started pulling the bricks off his back, he started making this terrible wheezing sound. I thought it might just be a few broken ribs until I realized he’d been stabbed as well. Twice.”

“Stabbed?” Panic lurched into Brienne’s throat, and she had to remind herself that this had happened months ago—that Jaime had already lived through it. “Do you know how?”

“Apparently Euron Greyjoy waylaid him on the beach at the foot of the Keep. He caught him once in each side before Jaime stuck a sword through his gut.” Tyrion scraped a hand along his thick, dark beard. “I still don’t know how he survived. Those wounds alone should have killed him, never mind the ceiling.” His eyes flicked to hers. “Some part of him must have wanted very badly to live.” 

The king’s words echoed in her head, and Brienne held her breath as she waited for Tyrion to repeat them. 

But he didn’t. 

Instead, he told her how, when he’d gone in search of help, Bronn had been waiting for him in the smoking streets just outside the Red Keep. He’d offered, to Tyrion’s surprise, to get Jaime out of sight and find someone to see to his wounds until they could sneak him out of King’s Landing. So Tyrion had given him a message to pass on to Davos—hoping the man who’d helped get Jaime into the city would be willing to smuggle him out again—before he went to confront the Dragon Queen. 

“So you just left him there?” Brienne asked, irritated and dismayed that he would abandon his own brother so quickly, especially to the care of someone like Bronn. _She_ would have hauled Jaime to the beach, tossed him in the boat, and rowed him out of Blackwater Bay herself. 

“It wouldn’t have been my first choice, I assure you,” Tyrion said, sounding more defeated than defensive. “But I had to face what Daenerys had done, what I’d helped her to do. I couldn’t run away from that, not even for my brother.” His gaze settled on hers, heavy with remorse and grief, and Brienne felt the edges of her anger begin to dull. “Besides, it wouldn’t have done Jaime any good if I’d stayed with him, only for her soldiers to come after us both. He was far better off if the world believed he was dead, and I hoped my actions would help sell the lie.” 

It wasn’t what _she_ would have done, but Brienne knew it wouldn’t be fair to fault him for it, not when he’d been trying to do the right thing. Not when he’d been trying to protect Jaime.

“Davos got word to me in my cell after he put Bronn and Jaime on a ship, but I didn’t even know where they’d gone until after the council was convened and I ended up with this,” Tyrion pointed at the golden hand shining on his chest, “pinned to me again.”

“The king said it was an island near the mouth of the Trident,” Brienne said, frowning. “I’ve never heard of such a place.”

“Nor had I, which I suppose is rather fitting.” A faint smile whispered across his lips. “They call it the Quiet Isle. It’s nothing but a septry full of silent men surrounded by water and mud, but it might be the only place in the Riverlands that survived the War of the Five Kings unscathed. I have no idea how Bronn knew about it, or how he convinced them to take Jaime into their care, but it was the perfect place to conceal a man with an infamous face.” 

It sounded safe enough to Brienne, and definitely remote, although that could have its drawbacks, too.

“Do they at least have a maester?” she asked, thinking of Jaime’s wounds.

“No, but the monk who leads them is renowned for his extraordinary healing abilities. It’s entirely to the credit of this Elder Brother that Jaime has recovered as well as he has.”

“He _has_ recovered, then?” Brienne didn’t realize she’d leaned forward in her seat until her breastplate bumped against the table. “He’s…he’ll be all right?”

Tyrion nodded. “The Elder Brother has been sending regular ravens, and he tells me it’s unlikely Jaime will suffer any permanent effects, beyond a few more scars. A fortnight ago, he wrote that Jaime was finally fit to leave the isle.” He shifted in his chair and let out a long, slow sigh. “My brother has been harassing me ever since, asking when he could come to King’s Landing. Then, this morning, I received a raven informing me that he would be here in a few days, with or without my permission.” 

Brienne bit the inside of her lower lip. It didn’t surprise her that Jaime would be eager to leave such a place—she couldn’t imagine him _enjoying_ the company of a community full of mute, pious men—but she doubted the capital would hold any joy for him, either. If anything, the city would remind him of what he’d lost. 

But that wasn’t the only thing that confused her.

“Why didn’t you want him to come?” she asked. “You must want to see him again.”

“I do,” he admitted. “Very much. However, I still need to speak to the king about the details of his future. And, to be honest, I was afraid his return might cost me a Lord Commander.” 

Bristling, Brienne shook her head. Did he think her a coward? “I would never abandon my duty. No matter how…difficult it was.” 

“I know you wouldn’t, Ser Brienne, but that’s not exactly what I meant.” Tyrion drummed his fingers on the table, studying her with disconcerting intensity. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you about the day Jaime nearly died. When I found him, when he first opened his eyes, he…” 

“I know,” she said, forcing a steadiness into her voice that she most definitely did not feel. “The king already told me.”

Tyrion’s forehead crinkled. “He did?” 

Her chin began to twitch as she nodded, and tears rose unbidden to her eyes. Brienne tried blinking them back, but they remained, blurring her vision and thickening her throat. “He told me Jaime said my name.”

“Yes,” Tyrion breathed, clearly relieved, though Brienne didn’t understand why. “It was the first thing he said, the only thing he said, over and over again. It’s why I was so desperate to keep you here after Bran was crowned. I couldn’t have you riding back off into the North with Sansa. I needed you here. _He_ needed you here.”

A tear spilled over, then, wending its way down her cheek, and Brienne angrily wiped it away. “I’m not sure I’m very concerned with what _he_ needs.”

Even though she was glad Jaime had survived, Brienne did _not_ appreciate that Tyrion had quite obviously interfered in her life—altered the entire course of her future—solely to accommodate his brother. Especially without her knowledge. Not after what had happened. 

Tyrion gave her a doubtful look. “I wouldn’t blame you if that were true, but I don’t think it is. Fortunately for my brother. Of course, I wasn’t sure at first. You would have been well within your rights to hate him. To be glad he was dead.” 

Brienne sighed, her shoulders sagging as the breath rushed from her nose. “I don’t hate him.”

And she certainly had never wished him dead. The fact that he’d been so willing to throw away his own life was part of what had broken her heart. She would _always_ have wanted him to live, even if it hadn’t been with her. 

“I know.” Tyrion’s smile was small and undeniably sad. “You and I are quite alike in that regard. Just because the people we love hurt us, it doesn’t mean we love them any less. Even when we wish we could.” 

Two more tears fell, leaving cool trails across her skin, and Brienne clenched her jaw against a renewed onslaught of irritation and sadness. Did _everyone_ know how she felt about him? Had Jaime known? It didn’t really matter, she supposed. It hadn’t stopped him if he had.

“He was happy with you, you know,” Tyrion said gently. “In Winterfell. We all saw it.” 

A hot, raw pain sliced through her, and Brienne slammed her eyes shut. The last thing she wanted was to discuss _that_ with _him_. 

“He _was_ , Brienne.”

She heard an indistinct rustle, and suddenly the weight of Tyrion’s palm was pressing through her gambeson, just above her wrist. When she opened her eyes, Brienne found his gaze just as insistent as his voice. 

“When Jaime first arrived at Winterfell, the first time the two of us had a chance to speak alone, he wandered away from me in the middle of our conversation to gawk down at you in the yard.” Tyrion removed his hand from her forearm and leaned back in his seat. “I was spouting off about marching south as a wight and murdering our sister, and Jaime didn’t even _hear_ me. He was too busy looking at you. And that night after the battle, when we were celebrating together in the Great Hall, he couldn’t seem to stop looking at you either.”

“That’s not true,” she argued. “We were all—”

“Yes, it is,” he interrupted. “I was there. And I don’t remember the last time I saw my brother that happy.” 

Brienne allowed herself to recall his smile, gleaming at her across the table in the flickering light, creasing his cheeks and crinkling the corners of his eyes. Jaime had seemed lighter in those precious hours than he had in all the years she’d known him. 

She couldn’t deny it; he _had_ been happy as they talked and drank and laughed. Happy and…free. 

Somehow, that only made it worse. 

“There hadn’t been anyone else for him but Cersei. Ever. Not until you.” Tyrion’s eyebrows drew together as he spoke, and there was something about the way he peered up at her, so searching and sincere, that reminded Brienne so much of Jaime she nearly couldn’t breathe. “That wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been in love with you. Surely you know that.” 

Brienne swallowed roughly. It didn’t matter how many other people said it. 

“He never told me,” she mumbled and immediately regretted it. She knew how ridiculous it was that she wished he had. 

“Didn’t he?” Tyrion looked pointedly at Oathkeeper. “I’d have thought you would know better than anyone that my brother showed his feelings far more than he ever talked about them.” His green gaze drifted back up to hers. “Jaime never said he loved _me_ either, but I always knew he did.” 

Her fingers brushed over the sword as Jaime’s words once again sounded in her head. _It’s yours. It will always be yours_. 

“At any rate, I hope the fool will tell you now,” Tyrion muttered, and Brienne blinked at him. 

The king had, in fact, said Jaime would do just that, but she couldn’t fathom why. If he hadn’t said it before, what made anyone think he would say it now? Nothing had changed since that night in Winterfell’s courtyard except that his sister was dead. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “He made his choice.”

And now, against all odds, he would have to live with that—and so would she. Because Brienne would rather spend the rest of her life alone than as someone’s second choice. Even Jaime’s. 

“Yes, he did, but it isn’t the choice you think. He didn’t choose _her_ ,” Tyrion said, his brow once again dropping low. “I thought he had, at first—that she and she alone was driving him, like she always had. But I was wrong. I knew it the moment he said your name. He was lying there, with Cersei dead beneath him, and he didn’t call out for her. He didn’t even _look_ at her. He just kept calling out for you.” 

A prickle of something that felt dangerously close to hope erupted in Brienne’s chest, spreading outward and raising goosebumps along her limbs. Even her _fingers_ tingled, and she dug them into the tops of her thighs.

“I had a lot of time to think during the weeks I sat rotting in that cell,” Tyrion continued. “It quickly became clear to me that nothing Jaime said in that tent before I freed him made any sense at all. His repeated insistence that Cersei might win, how listless he was, how uninvested he seemed in her survival, his cavalier attitude toward the people in the city. The people whose lives he’d already sacrificed his honor to _save_.”

Brienne didn’t know what any of that meant, but none of it sounded like Jaime.

“He didn’t even have a plan.” Tyrion shook his head. “You know my brother, Ser Brienne. He can be rash at times, but he’s smarter than people give him credit for. I learned that the hard way at Casterly Rock. You’d think the lesson would have stuck with me longer than it did.” His hand moved restlessly on the table, his fingers stretching out as though they sought a cup of wine that wasn’t there. When he realized what he was doing, Tyrion scowled and his hand stilled. “If anyone was the stupidest Lannister, it was me.” 

“I don’t understand,” Brienne murmured, and it was true. She had no idea what to make of everything he’d just told her—or what that expression was supposed to mean.

“He said Cersei had called him that,” Tyrion explained, “as though the fact that they caught him because of his golden hand proved her right.”

Brienne puckered her lips. “He was captured because of his hand?” 

Tyrion was right; that _didn’t_ make any sense. In fact, it beggared belief. 

“That can’t be true,” she insisted. Jaime was many things, but he wasn’t stupid. “He would have taken it off, if it had come to that, or at least worn his glove.” 

Tyrion huffed. “You’re right, of course. I should have known as soon as he said it that something wasn’t right, that he was keeping something from me.” His hand curled into a fist, and he slammed it once against the table. “He put it all right there for me to see, and I was too wrapped up in my own concerns to notice. I just assumed he was going back to save her, or die with her if he couldn’t.” 

This time the prickle stayed in her chest, buzzing beneath her ribs. 

“Are you saying he…wasn’t?” Brienne asked uncertainly, wary of even acknowledging the possibility.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Why, then?” she demanded. “Why would he come back?” 

“I’m afraid that isn’t my story to tell.” His shoulders lifted in a slight, apologetic shrug. “It’s why I kept the truth from you, all this time. It seemed cruel to reveal he was alive without revealing the rest, but I knew it wasn’t my place to share it with you, even before Jaime asked me not to.”

Brienne twitched back, stung. “He didn’t want you to tell me? Did he say why?”

“He did not, but I presume it was so he could do it himself.” Tyrion tipped his head toward her. “You deserve to know the truth, Brienne. You’ll _want_ to know. And I realize it may not seem like he deserves the chance to tell you, but I swear to you, he does. All I ask is that you let him.”

She struggled to imagine what this truth must entail that would make Tyrion entreat her so solemnly, would make him so certain about what it would mean to _her_. It seemed impossible that anything could change the way things had ended between them—no matter what his reasons, no matter what he said. 

Then again, only an hour ago, Jaime had been dead, and _all_ of this had been impossible. 

So, with her hand once again curling around Oathkeeper’s familiar grip, Brienne said, “You have my word.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the show *kind of* gave a nod to the Elder Brother and the Quiet Isle. But I wanted the real thing, so...I included it. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment on this story! I'm glad my attempts to retcon the hell out of season 8 are working for so many of you. I'm not even close to finished with it yet. :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Brienne was on her way down to the armory amid the usual morning bustle when she saw him across the middle bailey, and she halted so abruptly that the gravel slid beneath her boots.

He stood with his back to her, but Brienne would have known him anywhere, even if he hadn’t been talking with his brother. Everything from the set of his feet to the slope of his shoulders to the way his slightly shaggy hair hung down over the back of his neck was as familiar to her as her own body. The only difference now was an empty brown sleeve where his golden hand had once been. 

She’d thought she was prepared for it—for _him_ —but when he turned his head to look up at the half-ruined castle, allowing her a glimpse of his bearded jaw and the sharp ridge of his nose, the force of it hit her like a blow.

 _Jaime._ Alive. _There_. Not just in her memory, but really there, standing in the sunlight no more than twenty steps away.

Her breath seized beneath her collarbone, a tight, tangled knot she couldn’t swallow, and her chin shook so forcefully she was afraid her teeth would start chattering. 

It might have been easier if she’d wanted to stomp over and punch him in that perfect jaw, to shout at him and demand the truth—to vent the hurt and anger that had lingered inside her, even after what Tyrion had said. But she didn’t. 

In that moment, everything else drained away, and all she felt was glad. 

It wasn’t until Tyrion shifted and Brienne realized he was staring across the yard at _her_ rather than up at his brother that she finally tore her eyes away. Praying to the Seven that Tyrion wouldn’t call her name, she forced her feet to resume their path toward the far end of the bailey, fighting the instinct to glance behind her the entire walk to the armory door. 

When she stepped inside, Brienne took a steadying breath and allowed some of the tension coiled between her shoulders to relax. It would get more difficult than that, she knew—much more difficult—but the first, at least, was over. She’d seen him, and she’d survived.

Of course, that didn’t mean she was eager to encounter him again, especially not in the middle of the Keep where everyone could see. Hoping Tyrion would spare her that risk by taking him somewhere else—to the council chamber or the king or whatever quarters he’d decided to put him in—Brienne lingered over her business with the smith far longer than she needed to before venturing back outside. 

She squinted around the bailey, grateful to find them gone, but she kept a wary eye out on her way back to the White Sword Tower, just in case. There was, however, no sign of them anywhere, and Brienne felt an odd twinge of disappointment alongside her relief. She flattened her lips into a firm line as she climbed the stairs, annoyed by her own foolishness—after all, she either wanted to see him or she didn’t.

But as soon as Brienne walked through the doorway to the common room, she realized it could be both. 

Jaime stood hunched over the shield table, intently studying the open White Book, and for the second time in half an hour, Brienne stopped short at the sight of him. 

From that distance, she could see how much thinner he’d become, the way his cheeks seemed slightly sunken and pale beneath his beard. It reminded her of how he’d looked in the baths of Harrenhal, haunted and half dead and still somehow the most handsome man she’d ever seen. 

This time, he should have been entirely dead, and Brienne’s whole body burned with need to cross the room and touch him, to reassure herself that he was safe and warm and real. She was on the verge of taking a step when she returned to her senses and roughly cleared her throat instead.

Instantly, Jaime’s head snapped up, his piercing blue gaze locking with hers as he slowly straightened to his full height. Once he had, he just kept staring at her in silence, his eyes full of fondness and awe, sorrow and longing…like every look he had ever given her, all distilled into one.

“Brienne,” he said hoarsely, and the sound of her name on his lips made her chest ache. 

The last time she’d heard it, he’d whispered it against her skin, with nothing but the firelight and the furs and the stone walls of her chamber— _their_ chamber—to bear witness. Until a few days ago, she’d never thought to hear that voice again. 

“Ser Jaime,” she replied far too softly, and his eyebrows twitched. Then, because she had to say something else, she asked, “What are you doing up here?”

“Looking for you.” His gaze dropped to Oathkeeper at her hip, and Brienne swore she saw a smile flicker around his eyes. “Though I have to say I didn’t quite believe it when Tyrion first told me.” 

“Believe what?” That she still wore his sword? That she’d agreed to see him? Brienne didn’t know how she thought their conversation would begin, but it certainly wasn’t like this. 

“I was sure you’d be in the North with Sansa Stark, and instead I find you Lord Commander of her brother’s Kingsguard.” Jaime’s eyes trailed over the rest of her before finally returning to her face. “How the hell did Tyrion manage to convince you?”

There was something brittle in his voice, a desperation she didn’t understand, and Brienne just shook her head. “He didn’t. He convinced Queen Sansa, and she asked me to watch over her brother.” 

“Ah, I see,” he said, but she doubted he did. “Did you leave young Podrick in the North in your stead?”

“No,” Brienne replied, frowning. Why were they talking about this? Why did he even _care_? “Ser Podrick wanted to stay here. In the Kingsguard.”

“Of course he did.” A wistful smirk curved his lips. “You knighted him?” 

“I did.”

She wouldn’t have been able to had he not knighted her first, and Brienne wondered if that little smile meant he was having the same thought—if the memory of that night, and the ones that followed, had stayed with him the way it had with her. 

“Well, I’m happy for you,” Jaime declared, sounding as though he were _trying_ to mean it much more than he actually did. More gently, he added, “If anyone can restore honor to the Kingsguard, it’s you.”

Something deep within her softened at his praise, just like it always had, and Brienne stiffened against the sensation. She couldn’t afford to be soft. Not with him. Not anymore. 

“You didn’t come here to congratulate me,” she said, her tone colder and more clipped than she meant it to be, but Jaime didn’t seem surprised.

“No, I didn’t.” His eyes searched her face. “I came to apologize. And to explain, if you’ll let me.” 

The low, hopeful thrum of his voice made Brienne feel as though her chest might crack open beneath her breastplate, and it was all she could do to nod curtly in reply. 

“Good,” he said. “But first there’s something I need to know.” 

A jolt of annoyance shot through her. Brienne didn’t think _she_ owed _him_ information about anything. She would have told him that, too, but Jaime laid his hand across the White Book before she had the chance. 

“Why?” he asked thickly. “Why not write the truth?”

“I did,” she replied, fighting to keep her voice level. “You may have done terrible things, but you did honorable things, too. And you deserved to be remembered for them.”

Jaime shook his head. “No, I didn’t deserve that. Not from you. I deserved your hatred.”

“Maybe,” Brienne said quietly. “I _was_ angry, but I couldn’t hate you.”

“Why not?” he rasped. 

Tears bloomed in her eyes, but she didn’t lower them from his. “We don’t get to choose who we love.”

His chest swelled sharply, and a fierceness kindled in his gaze as he came around the table, taking long strides in her direction. As he drew nearer, Brienne moved back a step, and Jaime stopped. He looked almost wounded, for a moment, then grimly determined. 

“As honorable as your intentions were, it’s not _all_ true.” 

“I suppose it’s not,” she said, thinking of his entry’s final line—the one that had made her feel like she was carving out her own heart with the blunt edge of that damned quill. “But it’s hardly my fault I thought you’d died.”

Jaime flinched. “No, it isn’t, but that’s not what I…” He trailed off as he took another step, and this time she didn’t move back. “I most certainly did not _escape imprisonment_ , Brienne. I didn’t _want_ to leave Winterfell.”

He looked as though he expected her to argue with him, but how could she? She’d known even then that he hadn’t been _eager_ to go. His face had not been that of a man who was happy about what he was doing. 

“But you did.” A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, but Brienne refused to acknowledge it by wiping it away. “You _did_ leave.” 

The muscles of his throat flexed as he swallowed. “I know.” 

“Why?” she breathed, disgruntled by the way her voice pitched higher, the way she craved and dreaded the answer in equal measure. 

His eyes flared, glittering with surprise, and then he sighed. “They were going to destroy this city. You said so yourself.” Jaime tipped his head to the side, and Brienne caught a glimpse of a jagged red line skirting the edge of his forehead, under the fall of his hair. “I once killed a king I’d vowed to protect to keep that from happening. Do you think I wouldn’t have done whatever it took to stop my own sister?” 

Brienne reeled back, shaking her head in reflexive disbelief. He wouldn’t. He _couldn’t_. Not Cersei. Not after the things he’d said. 

It was impossible, ridiculous. Wasn’t it?

Something about the agonized plea shining in his eyes made doubt flicker in her heart. “Are you saying… You can’t have meant to _kill_ her?” 

“Not exactly, no. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.” His mouth twisted. “But I had prepared myself in case it did.”

And Brienne knew, with sickening certainty, that he _had_. The truth of it was there, in the bleak lines of pain and resignation etched across his face. 

“But you loved her,” she murmured, because it was true. Because she couldn’t imagine Jaime doing anything but trying to _protect_ the people he cared about. He’d been doing it since the day she met him—for Cersei, for his children, for Tyrion. Even for her.

“Yes,” he huffed, “I loved her, and I spent my entire life doing terrible things for the sake of it.” Jaime scrubbed his hand across his chin. “Olenna Tyrell once told me Cersei was a monster, a disease I would regret my role in spreading, and she was right. I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to see it, but once I had, I knew it was my responsibility to stop her.” 

“Stop her from what?” Brienne asked. She knew he was telling her the truth, but she couldn’t fathom why he’d been so convinced it had to be _him_. Not when an entire army had marched south to remove his sister from the Iron Throne—an army she never stood a chance of defeating. “She was going to lose anyway.”

“Yes, she was. And the worst things Cersei ever did were to prevent that from happening.” His eyebrows lowered as he moved even closer, until only a few paces remained between them. “Sansa was _so certain_ they would execute her, when you told me about Missandei and the dragon, but I knew my sister. She would do anything to protect herself—to win, no matter the cost. She’d done it before.”

Jaime turned his head toward the nearest window, scowling at the distant rise of Visenya’s Hill. “I should have stopped her when I returned from the Riverlands to find a smoking ruin where the Sept of Baelor once stood, when she said our son betrayed her after he’d thrown himself out a window because his mother had murdered his wife. I should have stopped her when she lied to us all and conspired with Euron Greyjoy behind my back for the sake of that godsdamned throne.” 

His gaze returned to hers, heated and ardent and begging her to understand. “I didn’t want to look back and say I should have stopped her before she burned down King’s Landing just so Daenerys Targaryen couldn’t have it.”

_Burn them all._

A chill spiraled down Brienne’s spine. It was horrifyingly easy to imagine Cersei being willing to destroy the city, being content to rule over the remaining bones and ashes—as long as they still belonged to her. Even being prepared to risk her own life, if it meant depriving someone else of victory. Just because she hadn’t done it didn’t mean she _couldn’t_ have. 

She understood, now, why he’d gone, but not why he’d borne it alone. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, past caring about the tremor in her voice. “Why did you say you were going back to save her?” 

Jaime peered up at her with strangely gentle eyes. “I didn’t.”

Brienne’s eyebrows crashed together. She’d gone over and over that night in her head, reliving every word more times than she could count. “You _did_ ,” she insisted. “You said—”

She stopped abruptly, the realization striking her like a hammer on molten steel, scattering sparks of shock inside her head. Gods, he _hadn’t_. She had immediately assumed it, and Jaime hadn’t corrected her—but _he_ had never said it. He’d just listed all the awful things he’d done for Cersei and gotten on his horse.

“You said you were hateful,” she murmured. He’d _wanted_ her to think he was hateful, and there was only one stupidly noble reason Brienne could think of to explain why. “You didn’t want me to follow you.” 

“No, I didn’t,” he said sadly. “I gave you the worst of me, hoping that would be enough, but I never said I was going to try and save her. She was beyond saving. I knew that just as well as you did.” 

Brienne drew in a long breath. She didn’t doubt him—he had no reason to lie about it now—but there was still something that didn’t fit, no matter how she turned the pieces in her mind. And she needed to know the truth about that, too. No matter how painful it was.

“What about the child?” she asked.

His eyes grew alarmingly wide, and he uttered a strangled, “Tyrion?”

“Podrick.” Brienne stared at him, her armor suddenly feeling very heavy. “You should have told me.” 

He nodded. “Yes, I should have. It was wrong of me not to, and I knew it as soon as we…” His gaze slid down her body in a way that made Brienne’s neck flush hot. “After that first night. You fell asleep, and I was so damned _happy_ to have you next to me, to be able to stay and wake up beside you. I was aching to touch you again, as many times as you’d have me, and then I realized what a selfish idiot I’d been for not telling you before I touched you at all.” 

Brienne frowned. He _had_ touched her again. And again. And again. He’d shared her bed every single night until the night he left, and he’d never said a word.

“And after that?” she pressed. “Why not tell me then?”

“Because I was a coward,” he said bluntly, and Brienne blinked, startled by his candor. “I knew it would hurt you, and I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to risk...” Jaime paused, his hand fluttering between them. “At first, I thought you could never understand, and then I knew you would, and I still kept shoving it away because I didn’t want to think about it. Because it wasn’t enough to make me want to go back. Because I wished it didn’t exist. And for all I know, it never did.” He gave a bitter shake of his head. “The moment I found Cersei in the Keep, I could see she wasn’t pregnant. She’d either lost it, or the whole thing had been another lie to bend us all to her will. Either way, it didn’t matter.”

His troubled eyes drifted away, fixing on a point somewhere over Brienne’s shoulder. “She was so _broken_ , Brienne. Defeated. Afraid. I hadn’t seen her that way since we were children. She seemed _worried_ that I was hurt, when she’d threatened to kill me twice already.”

Brienne blanched. _Kill_ him? Her mouth was halfway open before she saw the look on his face and pinched it shut. That was not the time to ask. 

“I knew she didn’t pose a threat to the city anymore, and the Dragon Queen was already burning it anyway. There was nothing I could do to save it.” His jaw hardened. “But I’d promised Tyrion I would try to get her out, so that’s what I did. And I failed at that, too.” 

In spite of everything, Brienne felt an overwhelming urge to console him, to reassure him that he’d done everything he could. Because she knew, no matter what he said, that Jaime hadn’t truly _wanted_ to see Cersei die. 

But the words stuck in her throat, and Jaime spoke again before she could force them out. 

“When we were trapped in the dungeons, she kept saying she wanted our child to live, begging me not to let her die. That’s when I knew she’d gone completely mad, and I couldn’t bring myself to hate her. She was still my sister, and I’d loved her all my life.” His shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. “I _pitied_ her, and I blamed myself for being too weak and blind to stop her before her actions brought the world down around us. So I held her in my arms and tried to comfort her while I waited for our lives to end.” Jaime’s gaze returned to hers. “But I lied to her, Brienne. The very last words I spoke to her were a lie.” He took a small, tentative step forward. “I never lied to you.”

Her eyes flooded and stung, and Brienne tightened her chin to keep it from trembling. If Jaime noticed, it didn’t stop him from taking another step, bringing him close enough to reach out and touch her. She hated how badly she wanted him to.

“You were all I could think about, even then, when I was certain I was bound for the deepest of the seven hells. I wished I hadn’t hurt you the way I did. I wished I’d told you how much I…that I…”

Brienne didn’t realize her hand was reaching for Oathkeeper until it was too late to pull it back, so she curled her fingers around it and held on tight. “It's all right. I knew you…cared for me, but—”

“Care?” he scoffed. “Is that all you thought it was?” 

He angled his head and gave her that look again, the same one he’d given her when he first glanced up from the White Book. The look he’d been giving her for years—all pining and pain and reverence and…love. 

Uncertainty rippled through her, followed by a fierce, throbbing hope. Had he really been doing that, all this time? Was that what love looked like? Was that what _their_ love looked like? 

Jaime’s hand, warm and calloused, closed around hers before Brienne even realized he’d moved to take it. “You were the most honorable person I’d ever known, and the truest knight, long before I touched my blade to your shoulders. But once I had, I couldn’t deny how I felt about you anymore. The moment you smiled at me, I wondered how I’d managed to do it for so long.” He brushed his thumb across her knuckles. “I _love you_ , Brienne, and it took everything I had to leave you.” 

A quiet, choked sob slipped out between her lips, and Jaime’s forehead crumpled. But he didn’t let her go.

“Your tears haunted me all the way to King’s Landing. I’d never seen you like that, and knowing _I_ had caused you that kind of pain hurt me worse than this,” he held up his stump, “ever did. I thought about turning around and riding back to you at least a dozen times, but if I had, I wouldn’t have been the man you thought I was.”

Brienne’s heart pounded against her ribs. She wanted to grab him by the collar and kiss him until she couldn’t breathe—and simultaneously to knock him to the floor. Not because he’d hurt her, but because he’d loved her and left her to think he’d hadn’t.

She was suddenly, irrationally furious with him, almost more than she’d been before. Fuck whatever chivalry or concern had prompted him to leave her behind. It shouldn’t have been his decision to make. She could have _helped_ him; if he’d let her, maybe things would have turned out differently. And if they hadn’t, she would have rather died trying to protect the man she loved than live her life—even a good life—without him.

“I would have gone with you,” she said hotly, tugging her hand from his grasp. “I had every right—”

“No, Brienne.” A cold fear flashed in his eyes. “I couldn’t gamble your life to pay for my mistakes.” 

“I can hold my own in a fight,” she snapped.

“I know you can,” he retorted, “but I had to go alone.” 

Frustrated, Brienne flung out her hands. “ _Why_?” 

Jaime looked deeply uncertain, and he remained silent for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer.

Then, finally, he said, “Because Bran Stark told me there was no other way.” 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I'm so sorry for the atrociously long wait between updates. I had an unexpected death in the family, and then some other general life craziness that left me with basically zero time to write. And when I finally returned to it, this chapter put up a heck of a fight. Hopefully it was worth it! 
> 
> Also, a quick note: I've had to up the total chapter count from 5 to 6. This will be the only time it changes, I promise! Things just didn't quite fit how I originally thought they would. Go figure. :) 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been reading along so far. I very much hope you enjoy this chapter!

The anger pulsing through Brienne’s body turned instantly from fire to ice. “The king?”

He had conveniently neglected to mention he had spoken to Jaime at all, let alone that he’d said something like _that_.

“He wasn’t a king at the time. He was just a boy. A boy with a power I didn’t understand.” Jaime sighed, and Brienne felt the warm burst of his breath against her chin. “But I believed it was real.”

Brienne frowned. She’d seen that power herself. She knew how disquieting it was, how impossible to doubt, and she didn’t blame Jaime for heeding it. Still, something about his words niggled at her, and it took her a long moment to figure out what it was. 

Most of the time, the king used his powers to view something in the past or elsewhere in the present—like when he told them he’d seen Drogon heading east, gliding over the Dothraki Sea, or when he’d known Gendry Baratheon had stowed himself away aboard Arya Stark’s ship a full four days before a raven arrived with the news. But Brienne had never seen him give even the smallest indication that he could foresee the future…except for that moment in the Dragonpit when Tyrion had asked him to be king. 

“What did he mean?” she asked, trying to ignore the flutter of foreboding in her gut. “No other way for what?”

“For me to succeed,” Jaime said grimly. “Which I quite clearly did not.”

Her frown deepened. She couldn’t argue with him, not when the city had burned and thousands had died. At the same time, Brienne had yet to see the king be _wrong_ about anything.

“If I’d known how things would turn out, I would never have listened to him,” Jaime continued. “But you have to understand, after what he told me in that godswood…” He gave a subdued shrug. “I didn’t think I had a choice.” 

“The godswood?”

Jaime nodded. “I found him there after you spoke for me in front of the Dragon Queen. I wanted to apologize for what I’d done to him, and to find out why he hadn’t told the others when he had the chance.”

Brienne thought of the king’s impassive face. She couldn’t imagine him harboring a grudge or seeking some kind of violent revenge, even against the man who’d crippled him for life. “What did he say?”

“That I wouldn’t be able to help in the fight if he let them murder me first. And when I questioned him about afterwards, he asked me how I knew there would be one.”

Brienne stiffened, barely suppressing a cold, uneasy shiver. There very nearly hadn’t been. 

“I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just asked him if there would be.” Jaime’s hand curled into a fist at his side. “I expected him to say no. I’d been prepared to face that outcome since the moment I rode out of King’s Landing. But he didn’t. He said it depended entirely on me.” His gaze, heavy with a meaning Brienne couldn’t decipher, fixed on hers. “He told me that when the time came to act, I couldn’t tell anyone my plan. Not you, not even Tyrion. That if I did, it would put your lives in danger. I had to go alone, at all costs.”

A fresh pang prickled in her chest as Brienne’s thoughts turned to the courtyard in Winterfell. She wondered if the king understood just how high that price had been, for both of them.

“He told me if I allowed myself to be captured, a path I hadn’t considered would open to me,” Jaime went on. “He said I had to take that path, to give my word and keep it, if I wanted to succeed. If I wanted—” His voice broke, and his lips pulled into a tight frown as he swallowed. “If I wanted the ones I loved most to survive.”

“But Cersei didn’t survive,” Brienne said softly, reflexively—and with enough uncertainty that it almost sounded like a question. A question she knew he had already answered.

Jaime gave her a familiar look that managed to be both mildly exasperated and extraordinarily soft, and she couldn’t believe she’d spent so many years not seeing what it meant. “No, but my brother did. _You_ did, Brienne.”

He took a half-step nearer to her, until he was as close as he could be without touching her. As close as he’d been that first night, when he’d surged forward and crushed his mouth to hers with the same intensity that was currently simmering in his eyes.

“The hope that you would live was all that kept me going, at the end. Even after I knew I’d failed the city, I was desperate to get to Cersei. I’d given Tyrion my word I would try and get her out, and I didn’t intend to let dragonfire or a fucking half-mad pirate spoiling for a fight stop me from keeping it.” He shook his head. “I was so relieved when I found her, when I saw she was still alive. I knew _I_ was dead, but there was still a chance for the rest of you if I could just get her to that damned boat. But I failed that, too. I thought I’d failed _you_.” 

Tears welled in Brienne’s eyes as the full weight of his words sank down to the core of her—to the place where she felt just as deeply, loved just as fiercely, as he did. All along, it hadn’t only been about saving the city. It had been about saving the people he loved. 

Saving _her_.

She understood him completely, then, in the inexplicably profound way she always had. What would she have done if it meant protecting Lady Sansa or Podrick or her father? If she’d been given one chance to save Renly or Lady Catelyn? If it had been Jaime’s life hanging in the balance? What _wouldn’t_ she have done?

Brienne sighed, feeling some of the heaviness break free from around her heart, making way for a surprisingly powerful flood of forgiveness. And when she saw the pained lines creasing Jaime’s brow, the apprehension in his eyes—as though he still feared how she might respond—Brienne stretched out her hand to cup his face. “Jaime, you…” 

His eyes rounded so starkly in surprise that the words tangled on her tongue, and she abruptly moved to pull away, but Jaime trapped her fingers beneath his own before she could.

“I what, Brienne?” he murmured, his beard rasping against her palm.

“You didn’t fail me.” She gave a slight shake of her head. “You never have.” 

Jaime pressed his eyes shut, and Brienne watched his nostrils flare as he expelled an uneven huff. 

“Only you would say that,” he said huskily, “after everything I’ve done.” His eyes blinked open again, blue and bright and glassy with tears, and something tugged sharply in her solar plexus. “Brienne, I’m—”

A sudden clatter on the landing cut across his words, and Jaime’s jaw tensed beneath her hand just before Brienne snatched it away. He flicked his gaze over her shoulder, scowling at whatever he saw in the doorway, but he didn’t step away from her. 

“Lord Commander,” came Podrick’s apologetic voice, and Brienne slowly turned to face him. 

“Yes, Ser Podrick?”

“The king has requested that you join him in the small council chamber.” Pod’s dark eyes darted hesitantly to Jaime. “Both of you.” 

~*~*~

The king had his back to them when they walked side by side into the chamber, with his wheeled chair pulled up to the foot of the table, so Tyrion, sitting to his right, saw them first. 

He beckoned them forward in his usual jovial tone, but it was belied by the concerned curiosity in his eyes as they swept up to Brienne’s face and then over to his brother. 

Tyrion arched an eyebrow at him, and Brienne was on the verge of glancing over to observe Jaime’s answering expression when the king’s voice broke through the silence. 

“You’re angry with me.”

She stopped short a few steps from the back of his chair, and Jaime’s arm bumped hers as he jerked to a halt beside her. 

Even though the king hadn’t turned from his seat, Brienne knew the words were directed at her. They hadn’t been stern or accusatory—just a calm statement of fact. And they were true. 

How could she not be angry, when he’d sent Jaime to what had nearly been his death? When _he_ had been the reason she would have spent her entire life thinking the man she loved had preferred the idea of dying with his sister to living with her? 

Tyrion’s mouth drooped into a puzzled frown. “Your Grace, I’m sure my brother isn’t—” 

“I was speaking to Ser Brienne, Lord Tyrion,” King Bran interrupted, his voice as dispassionate as ever. “I believe Ser Jaime has told her everything.” 

“Has he?” Tyrion quipped, and Brienne could feel him studying her again. “Everything?” 

“I believe so,” the king replied. “And now she has questions. Don’t you, Ser Brienne?” 

Slowly, Brienne strode forward until she stood behind the chair opposite Tyrion’s, where she could look down into the face of the young king. “Yes,” she confirmed. “I do.” 

King Bran stared up at her, his steady brown eyes empty of guilt or blame, and nodded in what felt like understanding. 

Across the table, Tyrion loudly cleared his throat, drawing Brienne’s gaze to his. “Well, that makes two of us.” He gave her a meager, yet sympathetic smile and gestured at the seat in front of her. As Brienne reluctantly lowered herself into it, Tyrion glanced pointedly at Jaime, who was moving around the table toward the empty seat on his brother’s right. “Actually, I’m fairly certain they relate to the same thing.” 

Jaime’s eyebrows ticked upward as he pulled out the chair. “Oh?”

“Yes. The king was just telling me about your little conversation in the godswood at Winterfell.” Tyrion tapped his fingers on the table. “You seem to have left out a few crucial details.” 

Jaime sat down with a huff. “Does it count as leaving it out when I never told you anything in the first place?”

“What?” Brienne blurted, and both men turned to look at her. Her eyes flitted between them, from blue to green and back again. “You didn’t tell him?”

“I didn’t tell anyone. Not after what he said.” Jaime waved his hand at the king. “Not on purpose, anyway. Not until…”

“Until what?” she asked. After all, he’d just told _her_.

“Not until I assured him the danger had passed,” the king said, and three heads jerked in his direction.

“Danger?” Tyrion’s brow furrowed. “What danger?”

“The danger to your life, Lord Tyrion,” King Bran explained. “To all your lives.” 

“Ah, yes.” Tyrion slanted Jaime an inscrutable glance. “When exactly did you give him this assurance, Your Grace?”

“An hour ago, or perhaps a little more. Ser Jaime came to see me right before he went to the White Sword Tower.” 

Tyrion’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “I see.”

Brienne frowned. _She_ didn’t. 

“If he didn’t tell you,” she interjected, peering over at Tyrion, “how did you know?” 

“Why, Bronn told me, of course. My dear brother divulged quite a few things to him during their journey to the Quiet Isle, though I suspect that had more to do with milk of the poppy than Bronn’s charming personality. Still...” Tyrion’s smile wilted as he turned back to his brother. “You didn’t tell him everything.” 

“Apparently not,” Jaime said dryly.

“But you did try to tell _me_ , didn’t you? Everything you did, everything you said to me before I let you go… You _wanted_ me to know something wasn’t right, but I was too much of a fool to realize what you were doing.”

“Of course I wanted you to know,” Jaime replied. Had Brienne not known him so well, she might have missed the note of sadness in his voice. “If anyone was smart enough to figure it out without being _told_ , it would have been my brother.” 

“But I didn’t.” Scowling, Tyrion shook his head. “I thought you were going back to her.” 

“Yes.” Jaime lifted his hand to squeeze Tyrion’s shoulder. “And I don’t blame you. You’d seen me do it plenty of times before.” His eyes caught Brienne’s as he spoke, and his brows tilted together in regret before he turned to stare down the table at the king. “But I meant it when I said I’m not that person anymore.”

Brienne had no idea what that meant, and when she shared a brief, bemused glance with Tyrion, she realized he didn’t either. King Bran, however, seemed to understand exactly what Jaime was talking about. 

“I know, Ser Jaime,” he said. “The fact that you did as I instructed, knowing what it could cost you, proves that beyond all doubt.”

“Does it?” Jaime’s expression darkened. “Even though none of it mattered? Even though I failed?”

The king placidly shook his head. “You did not fail.” 

“No?” Jaime bit back. “I came south to save this city from a mad queen, and it burned at the hands of another.” 

“That may be true, but saving King’s Landing was never the measure of your success,” the king said. “And while I was sorry to hear of the city’s fate, it did not surprise me.”

Jaime narrowed his eyes, and Brienne saw the same horror she felt rising in her gut flicker across his face. Tyrion, looking equally appalled, leaned forward in his seat, and Brienne knew that whatever the king had shared with him, it hadn’t included _that_. 

“You _knew_?” Tyrion spat, anger flaring in his eyes. “We spoke in Winterfell, several times. If you knew Daenerys was going to burn the city, why in the seven hells didn’t you tell me?”

“I did not know,” the king replied, seeming utterly undisturbed by his Hand’s outrage. “The future is not like the past, Lord Tyrion. The ink is not yet dry. There are no certainties, only many possibilities, and even I cannot see them all. Not clearly.” He dipped his chin, nodding faintly at Jaime. “But I could see yours.”

“Mine?” The color drained from Jaime’s face. “Why?”

“Because our paths are linked, Ser Jaime. They have been ever since you pushed me from that tower. I don’t know why that connection allows me to see your futures, only that it does. All of them. And through you,” King Bran lifted his hand, gesturing to Tyrion and then Brienne, “the futures of others whose paths are also tied to yours.”

Brienne sat stock-still, stunned by the king’s words, but it didn’t stop a quiet recognition from sparking inside her. He had just given voice to the inexorable bond she’d felt ever since Locke’s men had tied them back to back on that horse. No matter how she’d tried to ignore it over the years, no matter how far apart their loyalties had led them or how impossible it seemed that she would ever even set eyes on him again, Jaime had never left her.

“I don’t understand,” Tyrion protested, cutting into her thoughts. “If it wasn’t about saving the city, why didn’t you just tell Jaime to stay in Winterfell?”

Brienne's attention lurched, sharp and focused, to the king. She’d been wondering the same thing ever since Jaime told her the truth—along with why it was so important that she hadn’t gone with him. She hadn’t done a thing in Winterfell after Jaime had ridden away from it. Her presence there had made no difference at all.

Once again, King Bran shook his head. “There was no future in which Ser Jaime’s honor did not compel him to go back, but there was only one in which you all survived. Every other alternative led to Ser Jaime’s death, or Ser Brienne’s, or yours, Lord Tyrion. This was the only way.” 

Jaime curled his hand around the back of his neck, his mouth flattening into a grim, rigid line. Beside him, Tyrion slumped back in his chair. “And King’s Landing?” he asked wearily. “In these other futures, might it have been saved?”

A knot of guilt formed in Brienne’s stomach as she waited for King Bran to reply, desperately hoping the answer would be no. Not only for herself—she didn’t know how she would live with the knowledge that thousands had died so that _she_ might survive—but for Jaime. If he’d sacrificed the city, even unknowingly… she doubted he would ever forgive himself. He would certainly never forgive the king, not if the young monarch had used him the way everyone else had been using him for years. 

“I don’t know,” the king admitted. “I could not see what befell the city in every future, or predict what other choices would be made.” He paused, and his gaze wandered to the adjoining map room, where sunlight streamed in onto the freshly repainted floor. “The fate of King’s Landing was out of my hands, but I knew I at least had a chance to save all of you. And I wanted you to live.” 

A crushing silence fell between them after the king’s voice died away, so palpable and heavy Brienne could feel it pushing against the inside of her ears. She tried to catch Jaime’s eye, but his attention was fixed resolutely on the surface of the table, so she ended up exchanging a long look with Tyrion instead.

Something morose and uncertain glimmered in his eyes, a hint of the same question that was tugging at her own conscience: _why?_ What was it about _their_ lives that was worth so much trouble? Why put them through all of this? 

Just as Tyrion parted his lips, presumably to ask the king that exact question, Jaime abruptly brought his fist down on the table. His chest and shoulders seemed to expand as he glowered at the king, and even now, with his haggard face and slighter frame, he made an imposing sight. “You should have told me the truth.” 

“Jaime,” Tyrion said quietly, though whether it was meant in consolation or in warning, Brienne couldn’t quite tell.

Either way, Jaime ignored him. “You should never have let me believe I could help the city.” 

“Perhaps,” the king acknowledged, and Jaime blinked in surprise. “But if I hadn't, you would have made different choices. You would not be sitting here now.”

“Does it matter that I am?” Jaime retorted. 

“It matters a great deal.”

“Why?”

“Because you deserved to live, Ser Jaime, just as they did,” the king said simply. “And because you still have an important part to play in building the future of this world. You…and your children.”

Jaime flinched. “I’ll never have children.” 

“Yes, you will,” King Bran insisted. “Several, in fact. All of them quite tall, with very blue eyes.”

Brienne’s breath hitched as shock swept through her, followed swiftly by a strange blend of fear and longing she could neither deny nor explain. And when she looked to Jaime, expecting another rebuttal, she found him staring back at her instead, his face brimming with a raw, naked hope that made her heart seize and skitter into her throat.

“That’s impossible,” Jaime rasped, his eyes burning into hers, and Brienne swallowed roughly when she realized he wanted it _not to be_.

“I assure you, Ser Jaime, it is not,” the king said in his most sure, omniscient tone. “One of them will marry a Stark, ending the feud between our families and strengthening the ties between our two kingdoms. And when my time as king is done, your eldest son will be chosen by his peers as my successor.”

“Your _what_?” Jaime croaked. There was no trace of hope in him now, only dread. “That isn’t… you can’t…” 

Tyrion, his face unusually ashen, laid a hand on Jaime’s arm. “I believe what my brother is trying to say, Your Grace, is that the whole thing, as tidily charming as it sounds, seems… unlikely, to say the least. You can hardly expect the lords and ladies of the Six Kingdoms to choose another Lannister to rule them, not after everything that’s happened.”

“But they will, Lord Tyrion. Without question. He’ll be a good man—the very best of them, in fact. Valiant, strong, loyal, and just, with a kind and noble heart. Just like his father… and his mother.” The king’s impenetrable gaze slid from Jaime to _her_ , and the force of it—and what it meant—struck Brienne like a sparring sword to the gut. “The two most honorable and revered knights in all of Westeros.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! I hope you're all keeping as safe and sane as you can in this difficult time. 
> 
> To those of you still with me: thank you for your patience. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update, but, well...LIFE. 
> 
> Although it's been challenging to work on this fic of late, I have always been determined to return to it. I promised when I began posting that this story would be finished, and I meant that. Especially now, we all need a little bit of joy—and I'm getting there, I promise! I can safely say the final chapter will not be quite so long in coming as this one. 
> 
> All my deepest gratitude to everyone who commented on the last chapter (and all the previous chapters)—I truly appreciate every single one of them, and my (shamefully late) replies are forthcoming! <3

Brienne felt Jaime’s gaze, hot and pleading, on her face, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him as she sucked a shaky gulp of air into her lungs.

In the naivety of her youth, she had sometimes allowed herself to dream of a family, but those dreams had died long ago. _Brienne the Beauty_ had seen to that. 

Even during those brief weeks in Winterfell, when Jaime had opened her eyes to the sudden and startling possibility that she could be accepted, appreciated, _desired_ as both a warrior and a woman—when she’d dared to imagine a future with him that stretched beyond the war’s end—motherhood had been the furthest thought from her mind. 

She had no memory of her own mother and absolutely no idea how to be one—if she even _wanted_ to be one. And yet…

Unbidden, a picture sprang to Brienne’s mind of the two of them in the training yard on Tarth, the sea breeze ruffling Jaime’s hair as they taught a pair of blond boys and a golden-haired girl how to spar in the very same spot where she had first gripped a sword. It was so vivid Brienne could taste the salt in the air, hear the clash of their blunted blades, see Jaime’s grin as the girl disarmed him with a lithe, clever movement that was an echo of his own. 

And when the girl laughed in triumph, it was _Brienne’s_ laugh, loud and braying and full of such genuine joy that it set a hollow ache throbbing in her chest. 

“Well,” Tyrion said, chasing the image away, “when you put it that way, I suppose it _does_ make a certain amount of sense.” 

“What?” Jaime asked sharply, and Brienne finally risked a glance at him. He was staring at his brother as though he’d lost his mind. “How does any of that _make sense_?”

Tyrion shrugged. “We have peace in Westeros for now, but it’s a precarious peace. An heir with strong ties to the east and the west, with a pair of war heroes for parents, might be the best chance the Six Kingdoms have of _staying_ six kingdoms.”

“That heir will never exist,” Jaime bit back. “Have you forgotten that you made her Lord Commander of the Kingsguard?” He jabbed his hand in Brienne’s direction. “She _can’t_ have children.” 

Tyrion looked over at her, his eyebrows spiking in surprise. “You didn’t tell him?” 

Brienne mutely shook her head. She’d just assumed Jaime already knew, that _Tyrion_ had told him… but when she thought back to the pained way he’d congratulated her a short while before, Brienne realized she should have known he hadn’t. Not that she could truly fault herself—the specifics of her Kingsguard vows hadn’t been topmost in her mind at the time. 

“Tell me what?” Jaime demanded.

“That Ser Brienne’s appointment is inconsequential in that particular matter.”

“Inconsequential?” Jaime growled. “If you think I would soil her cloak just to—”

“My dear brother,” Tyrion interrupted, “haven’t you noticed?” He flourished his own hand at her. “She isn’t wearing one.”

Jaime raked his eyes over her, and Brienne could tell by his disgruntled frown that he _hadn’t_ noticed, not really. 

“The things it symbolized belonged to the old world, the old rules governing the Kingsguard,” Tyrion said. “Ser Brienne and I agreed that both had done enough damage.”

Jaime’s gaze snapped up from where it had settled on the raven etched into her breastplate, and Brienne held it when it locked with hers. “You did?”

She nodded once, crisp and quick, and his incredulity softened into something almost tender. 

_So many vows_ , he’d once said, snide and flippant and wrapped in chains. _No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or another._

She’d despised him for those words at the time, but over the years, she’d come to understand. Vows could be sacred, honorable things, and Brienne would never swear one she didn’t mean to keep, but they could also tear a person apart. And no one serving under her would suffer that fate, not when they didn’t need to. 

“Neither of us believe that a knight’s loyalty and honor have anything to do with the color of the cloak they wear, or with their ability to abide by rules that deprive them of the right to live their own lives,” Tyrion continued. “Which is why, under Bran the Broken, knights of the Kingsguard are free to marry and have children, if they wish.”

Jaime ripped his eyes from Brienne’s to gape down at his brother. “Marry?” 

The word came out hesitant and hoarse, and Tyrion’s lips twitched up at the sound of it. 

“Indeed. Though I’ll admit I hadn’t given much thought to the practicality of the Lord Commander carrying a child.” Tyrion squinted pensively at Brienne’s armor-encased abdomen for a long moment, and the unmistakable burn of a flush licked across her cheeks. “I suppose the king could release her before her term of service is up, if it comes to that.” He gave her an unexpectedly genuine smile. “Much as I hate to let her go.”

“Term?” Jaime’s forehead lowered. “The Kingsguard serve for life.”

“Another outdated, impractical tradition,” Tyrion proclaimed, dismissively waving his hand. “Knights are now appointed to the Kingsguard for seven years at a time. Well, most of them, anyway.” He tipped his head toward her, winking one clear green eye. “I insisted Ser Brienne only agree to three.”

Brienne frowned. She distinctly recalled him trying to wheedle her into five—though she _had_ been surprised that he’d given in so easily. 

“Really, Jaime.” Tyrion glanced up at his brother with a look of feigned indignation. “Do you honestly think I would have bound her for life to the Kingsguard knowing you were still alive? What kind of brother do you think I am?”

“An irritating, conniving one,” Jaime muttered, scowling, but Brienne swore she glimpsed a hint of affection beneath his annoyance.

Tyrion snorted, then held up his hands. “I suppose I’ve earned that. Though in this case, I think you’ll find I was just trying to help. Very fortuitously for the kingdom, as it turns out.” 

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t make decisions about my future and _my family_ based on what’s best for the damned kingdom,” Jaime said, his tone suddenly as sharp as Oathkeeper’s edge. “I’ve spent my life watching people die for the sake of the throne. It’s taken enough from me.” His eyes darted briefly to Brienne’s. “I won’t let it take any more.”

“The throne is gone, brother.”

Jaime glared at him. “You know exactly what I meant.”

With a slow nod, Tyrion sighed. “I do. But it would be different this time, Jaime. In all the ways that matter.” 

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. For one, you’d be happy. You were never happy before. Not truly.” 

Jaime pressed his lips together. “That’s beside the point.”

“Why?” Tyrion asked, exasperated. “Don’t you think you deserve a—”

“Enough,” the king abruptly cut in, startling Tyrion into silence. “Ser Jaime is right, Lord Tyrion. You cannot force him. He has a choice, as does Ser Brienne.” 

This time, Brienne felt both Jaime and Tyrion’s eyes search her out, but she kept her own determinedly fixed on the king. “What choice?” 

“I have seen what could be, Ser Brienne. Whether it _will_ be is entirely up to you.” King Bran regarded her with his usual patient serenity. “Just as countless branches sprout from a single tree, each beginning has many possible endings, depending on the decisions you make. I can only tell you that the path to the best future is there, but you must choose to take it.”

Jaime’s chair creaked as he shifted in his seat. “The _best_ future?” 

“Yes, Ser Jaime,” the king said. “It won’t be perfect. None of them are. But it is the best future for Westeros. And for both of you.” 

~*~*~

Brienne was breathing hard by the time she reached her chamber at the top of the White Sword Tower, and she slumped back against the door with a thunk once she’d closed it behind her. She waited there, hoping the stillness in her body would help settle the swirl of shock and doubt and dread that was clouding her ability to think. 

She had wanted so desperately to hear the truth, thinking it would somehow make her feel better simply to _know_ it. But now that it had come pelting down around her like hailstones falling from the sky, Brienne just felt battered. 

Battered and weary and far less certain about her life than she had only a few hours before. 

There was a heavy, unyielding guilt, too, for standing there alive when so many others were not, and the weight of it pressed down on her shoulders as she remembered escorting Lady Sansa through the charred and crumbling city streets. They hadn’t arrived from the North until weeks after King’s Landing had burned, but the air had still smelled like a pyre. 

King Bran had told them the city’s fate had been beyond his ability to see, but Brienne couldn’t help but wonder… If he hadn’t interfered—if he hadn’t talked with Jaime, hadn’t wanted to save their lives—would thousands of _other_ lives have been spared? And if they chose not to follow the path the king had pointed them toward, would it all have been for nothing? 

Did she want that path, either way? Did Jaime? 

A sudden series of knocks vibrated through the door, jolting the questions from her mind and setting her heart thundering against her breastbone. 

She’d been so _sure_ he wasn’t going to follow her. 

He’d looked like he wanted to, at first, when the king had ended their conversation by asking her to wheel him out to where Ser Podrick and two other knights of the Kingsguard stood watch in the hallway, but his brother had stopped him before he could rise from his chair. Tyrion had said the two of them had other business to discuss, and Brienne had tried to ignore the gratitude that surged through her when Jaime remained at his side.

In truth, she wasn’t ready to face him again. Not yet. Not until she’d had some time to think.

But she could hardly turn him away. 

Bracing herself, Brienne unlatched the door and slowly swung it open—but the eyes that met hers were brown, not blue, and half a head below her own.

“Are you all right?” Podrick asked, his gaze brimming with concern.

Brienne nearly huffed in relief. “Of course I am.” 

Pod’s mouth drooped into a dubious frown. 

“Truly, Podrick,” she said, more softly this time. “I’m fine.” 

Apparently unconvinced, her former squire just stood there, blinking skeptically up at her until she stepped back into the room and motioned him inside with a sigh. 

He waited until she’d closed the door again before asking, “What happened in there?”

Brienne concentrated on keeping her expression neutral as she turned toward him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, when I found you and Ser Jaime in the common room, you seemed…” Podrick trailed off, scratching at the back of his neck. “Things seemed all right between you. Better. Then, when you came out of the small council chamber, you looked like he’d died all over again.” 

She bit her lip, rankled and a bit alarmed that she hadn’t masked her emotions better than that. Had she been that transparent at the council table?

“Something must have happened,” Pod pressed. “Was it Lord Tyrion?” 

Brienne shook her head. “The king.”

“The king?” Pod’s eyebrows shot up. “Is Ser Jaime in some kind of trouble?” 

“No,” she replied a little bitterly. “Ser Jaime did exactly what the king wanted him to do.”

Before she knew it, Pod had asked another question and the whole story was spilling out of her—everything that had happened since she’d discovered Jaime bent over the White Book. Pod listened, considering her silently with his steady, guileless stare as she explained why Jaime had left Winterfell, what he’d almost died trying to do, what the king had told them about their future. About their children. 

When she’d finished, Podrick gave a single, dazed shake of his head. “That’s a lot to take in, ser.”

“Yes,” she murmured, her gaze drifting toward the floor. “It is.”

“And you’re not… happy about it?” 

Brienne slid her eyes back to Pod’s face, taking in his genuinely puzzled frown, his wrinkled brow. 

“It’s just, if it’s all true, then a future like that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? I thought you might…” Podrick ducked his head. “Forgive me for saying so, ser, but I thought you might have wanted it.”

“I…” she faltered, scrambling for a denial. But the _true_ answer was suddenly there, and Brienne clamped her mouth shut to keep herself from voicing it. 

_I do_. 

The awareness of it hit her like a rough wave rolling in off Shipbreaker Bay, stealing the air from her lungs and flooding her mind once more with images: herself walking along a beach near the sapphire surf, her hand resting on an unfamiliar swell in her belly; her father with a child perched on each knee, his huge palms resting against their backs; Jaime, healthy and strong and happy, smiling down at a blue-eyed infant in his arms.

That infant growing into a man with her pale hair and Jaime’s cocky smile and a golden crown atop his head.

“It’s not that simple,” she finally said.

“Why not?” Pod asked. “You aren’t still angry with him?” 

“No,” she replied. “I’m not.” 

She _couldn’t_ be, not when everything Jaime had done just proved she had been right about him all along. He’d been willing to sacrifice his happiness—his _life_ —for the safety of others, just like the noble knights Brienne had always admired. Like the good man she’d always known he was. 

“But this isn’t just about Ser Jaime.”

Podrick’s brow furrowed more deeply, then abruptly softened in comprehension. “You’re worried about the child, aren’t you? Your son.” 

Brienne swallowed. “People like me are fit for serving the crown, Podrick, not siring it.”

He frowned. “That’s not tr—”

“It _is_ ,” she affirmed, cutting off what she knew would be a well-meaning, but nonetheless false, argument. She’d never prepared herself to be a mother, let alone mother to a king. “Even if it wasn’t, none of the kings or queens I’ve known have led very good lives. Or very long ones.” 

Whether Bran Stark would prove the exception to that rule—whether he would usher in some sort of golden age of monarchy—still remained to be seen. Brienne, for one, wasn’t counting on it. And she didn’t think she could watch a child grow up knowing a fate like Robert’s or Renly’s or Joffrey’s lay in wait for him. 

“It wouldn’t be that way, ser,” Pod declared, perceptive as ever. “You’re not like the rest of them. You’re…good. And you help Ser Jaime remember that he’s good, too.” 

Tears pricked at Brienne’s eyes. “He _is_ good, Podrick. That has nothing to do with me.”

He nodded, peering thoughtfully up at her. “What does he think about all this?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, realizing as she spoke them that the words weren’t precisely true. Jaime had seemed to dislike the idea of their hypothetical child becoming king just as much as she did. But she couldn’t deny the hopeful way he’d looked at her, or the way he’d reacted when Tyrion had mentioned marriage.

Brienne shifted the weight between her feet. “No matter what he thinks now, he may very well change his mind when he finds out about Tarth.”

“He doesn’t know you’re going back?”

“No.” 

Tyrion had said she would only be serving three years in the Kingsguard, but not why. He hadn’t mentioned that Brienne had given her word to her father—a word she couldn’t break now, not after she’d put off her responsibility for so many years. 

As heir to Evenfall Hall, as the future Evenstar, it was her duty to go back. But it wasn’t Jaime’s.

“Well, he’ll want to go with you,” Pod said firmly. “I’m sure of it.” 

Would he, she wondered? Was it even fair to ask him to? 

Brienne no longer doubted Jaime’s feelings for her, but that didn’t mean he would want to spend his future as a lord and husband and father on _her_ island. He’d wasted enough of his life trailing after other people instead of choosing for himself—she wouldn’t have him doing it again, not for her. 

“Ser Jaime deserves the chance to make his own choices,” Brienne said. “He shouldn’t be bound to mine.” 

“I think he’s already chosen, ser. After all, he _was_ willing to die for you.”

“I wasn’t the only reason he rode south, Podrick,” she corrected, her throat suddenly feeling very thick.

“Maybe not, but you _were_ the reason he went north in the first place. And I watched him risk his life for you in battle more than once.”

“What? That isn’t—” Brienne spluttered. “He went because he made a promise.”

Podrick gave her a gentle, knowing look. “Anyone with eyes could see that you were the reason he wanted to keep it.”

A rebuttal bubbled up inside her, but a distant voice sounded in her head before the words could reach her lips. Jaime’s voice. 

_I came to Winterfell because_ … 

Brienne frowned. She’d never thought much about the fact that he hadn’t finished that sentence. But now, recalling how awkward he’d looked, how earnest and uncertain… 

“You don’t have to take my word for it, ser. Just talk to Ser Jaime. If you give him the chance, he’ll choose you again. I know he will.” Pod tipped his head forward, his brown eyes wide and beseeching. “At least tell me you’ll think about it.” 

Brienne couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at her lips. He’d always been patient with her, and absurdly kind, even when she had treated him more roughly than she ought to, but it was only recently that she’d realized how well he _knew_ her—how much he cared. 

And, in this case, he happened to be right, at least about one thing. Whatever she and Jaime decided about the future, they needed to discuss it together. No more secrets, no more half-truths. No more things left unsaid. 

“I don’t need to think about it,” she said quietly, and Pod’s face fell. It brightened again, though, when she added, “It’s as you said. I need to speak with him.”

He flashed her a pleased, round-cheeked smile. “Would you like me to find him, ser? I could ask him to come and see you when he’s finished with Lord Tyrion.”

Something jumped in Brienne’s gut, and she held up her hand. “No, I still have duties to attend to today. But I would be very grateful if you would ask him to meet me in the common room this evening.”

“Of course. I’ll go at once.” With a nod, Podrick moved toward the door, but he paused to look back at her just before he opened it. “For what it’s worth, ser, I think you and Ser Jaime would raise a good king.”

Brienne’s vision blurred as tears pooled in her eyes. “Thank you, Podrick. It’s worth a great deal.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at last, at the end! Thank you to everyone who has stayed with me along the way—and to anyone joining in now that it's finally done (about three months later than I thought it would be...oops). I appreciate you all very, very much.
> 
> Extra special thanks to katykrash for her endless support and encouragement and to hardlyfatal for the beautiful new cover image she made for the story. <3 <3 <3
> 
> I never thought we would actually get an ending like this for our beloved pair, but I firmly believe it's the kind of ending they deserved. The kind we deserved. I truly hope you enjoy it.

The fresh ink gleamed wet and dark in the candlelight as Brienne laid down her quill next to the White Book. 

She’d left her armor in her chamber nearly an hour before, but Oathkeeper glittered on the shield table beside her, its ruby flashing a deep, clear red at the edge of her vision as she studied the words she’d just crossed off and the new ones she’d written in below them. 

“Diligent as ever, I see.” 

Brienne couldn’t help the way her lips quirked as she lifted her eyes to find Jaime standing in the doorway, faintly illuminated by the orange glow of the fire—nor the way seeing him there, wearing only a simple brown tunic over his breeches and boots, reminded her suddenly of Winterfell.

“Today of all days,” he added, “I’d have thought duty could wait.” 

He bore no pitcher of wine this time, carried no cups in his hand, but Brienne saw a little bit of the same wide-eyed uncertainty on his face, despite the light jest in his voice.

“It was important,” she told him. “I had a mistake to correct.” 

“Is that so?” He shifted slightly. “Pod said you wanted to speak with me, but I can come back later if you—”

“No,” she said, too quickly. “I’m finished.” Leaning forward, she pushed the weighty book across the shield table in his direction. “See for yourself.” 

Jaime’s eyebrows arched high as he stepped out of the doorway and walked slowly to the table. He stopped directly across from her and pulled the book around to face him, and Brienne watched as his eyes skimmed down the page. She knew when his whole body went taut and still that he’d reached the end, where her fresh words had finally begun to dry. 

He didn’t read them aloud, but he didn’t need to—she’d spent three quarters of an hour deciding what to write, and she doubted she’d ever forget it. 

_Rode south in an attempt to save the capital from destruction. Kept his word even when the city burned, nearly losing his life to safeguard the future of those he loved. Rescued, gravely wounded, from the rubble of the Red Keep. Rehabilitated on the Quiet Isle._

“Better,” Jaime said thickly when he finally looked up at her. “But you left something out.”

Brienne frowned. “I’m certain I didn’t.” 

“You did.” He pressed his finger to the page. “Just here.” 

Puzzled, Brienne rose from her chair and moved halfway around the table, until she was near enough to see where he was pointing. To her surprise, it wasn’t at the newly written words, but several lines higher—at the passage pertaining to Winterfell. 

“I would like to have been remembered for knighting the first woman in the Seven Kingdoms.” There was no jest in his voice now, only sincerity. Brienne found it in his eyes, too, along with a vague, aching sadness, when she raised her own to meet them. “I didn’t blame you for not wanting to put it in before, but—”

She had to fight around the lump lodged in her throat to cut across him. “I did.”

His forehead rippled, and he dipped his chin toward the open book. “It’s not here.”

“Not on that page, no,” she replied, and Jaime’s eyes flared wider. 

For a long moment, he just stared at her, unblinking, his face a dance of golden light and shadow. Then, with the same intensity of attention, he glanced down and began quickly flipping through the White Book. 

“What are you doing?” Brienne asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“Looking for—ah, here it is. Ser Brienne of Tarth.” Jaime traced his finger across the top of the page inscribed with her name. “Sole surviving child of Lord Selwyn Tarth of Evenfall Hall.”

“Jaime,” she warned, “I hardly think—”

“Served in the Rainbow Guard of King Renly Baratheon during the War of the Five Kings,” he began to read, ignoring her. “Failed to protect him from the shadow that took his life, and fled his camp with Lady Catelyn Stark. Pledged an oath of service to Lady Stark and returned with her to Robb Stark’s camp in the Riverlands.” He paused, his eyes flashing briefly up at her before returning to the page. “Escorted Ser Jaime Lannister from Riverrun to King’s Landing in a failed attempt to exchange him for Lady Stark’s daughters. After hearing of Lady Stark’s murder at the Twins, armed by Ser Jaime and sent on a quest to find the missing Stark girls and see them to safety.”

There was something profoundly uncomfortable about hearing the accounting of her own deeds read aloud. But Jaime was focused so intently on the task, reading each line with such solemnity, that Brienne didn’t have the heart to stop him. 

So she just stood there, rigid and silent, as he read out the details of their years apart: how she’d found and lost Arya Stark, how she’d followed Lady Sansa to Winterfell. How she’d sat vigil, waiting for a sign, but then abandoned her post to deliver justice to Stannis Baratheon. How she’d finally managed to rescue Lady Sansa from the Boltons’ men and taken her to Castle Black. 

Jaime read about her unsuccessful mission to Riverrun, too, and her journey to the Dragonpit as Lady Sansa’s representative, even though he was well aware of both, and about how she’d returned to the North to fight as part of the alliance of the living against the dead.

Then, suddenly, he stopped.

Brienne heard the drag of his indrawn breath, saw the sharp rise and gentle fall of his shoulders, felt her own stomach clench as she waited for him to go on. But Jaime just kept staring at the page, so hard and for so long she thought it might combust under his gaze. 

When he finally did speak again, throaty and wavering, the sound pierced straight through her, burrowing beneath her ribs. 

“In defiance of tradition, knighted by Ser Jaime Lannister on the eve of the Battle of Winterfell, becoming the first female knight in the Seven Kingdoms.”

She hadn’t written that it had meant more to her than anything else in her entire life—that she’d never forget the cold stone beneath her knee, the warm insistence in his voice, the soft scrape of his blade on her armor. Such words had no place on the pages of the White Book.

But when Jaime looked up at her with his heart shining in his eyes, Brienne thought he might have known she’d meant them. 

“I should have done it years ago.” 

She smiled sadly, hitching her shoulders in a weak shrug. “Nobody else would have done it at all.” 

“They would have,” Jaime argued, “eventually. But I’m glad it was me.” 

Brienne’s eyes filled with tears. “So am I.”

“Are you?” he rasped. “Still?”

“Of course.” 

She had been, even before she’d known the truth, but Brienne could tell by the doubtful slant of his eyebrows that Jaime didn’t quite believe her. 

“I was never _sorry_ for it, Jaime. For any of it.” 

“You should have been,” he murmured, deep lines appearing between his brows. “I was. I _am_.” Jaime took a hesitant step closer to her. “I was going to tell you before, when Podrick…” He gestured behind himself, toward the door. “I was going to apologize for what happened. For Winterfell.” 

Brienne shook her head. “You don’t need to—”

“I do,” he insisted. “I knew what it would do, leaving that way. I knew what you would think, and I did it anyway.” 

A sting went through her as Brienne remembered waking up to the click of the door, finding the bed empty beside her. She’d often wondered, in the weeks that followed, if it would have been better if he’d succeeded in stealing away, if she hadn’t followed him out into the night. Looking back on it now, though, she could see how little it would have mattered. She’d made assumptions about his motives before he’d even looked up from his horse. Discovering his absence in the morning wouldn’t have changed what she thought, and it certainly wouldn’t have hurt any less. And if it _had_ , if Jaime had tried to fabricate a less painful explanation, she never would have let him go alone. 

Jaime swallowed hard, making the tendons stand out at the base of his throat. “I’m sorry, Brienne.” 

“Don’t be.” A tear ran down each of her cheeks, but Brienne just gave a quick sniffle and tried to ignore them. “You did what you had to do. I would have done the same thing, if I’d been in your place. To protect the city. To protect you.” 

“You wouldn’t.” He gave her a small, rueful smile. “Knowing you, you would have found another way.” 

“The king said there was no other way. No other way we would all live.” And, despite her guilt, Brienne was glad they had. She would endure it all again—a thousand times, if she had to—to prevent his death. To have him there, now, standing little more than an arm’s reach away. “You didn’t have a choice.”

“The king said a lot of things. To both of us,” Jaime said. “Do you believe him?”

There was a fragility in his voice there hadn’t been before, and it made Brienne want to reach for him. Instead, she answered gently, “I don’t think he lied to us, if that’s what you mean.”

“Then mine isn’t the choice we should be discussing.”

Brienne’s weight shifted immediately into her heels, as though her body was preparing to back away from him—from what they had to address. She’d known they would come to it eventually; it was, after all, why she’d asked him to come. But that didn’t make it any easier. 

“My choice is already made,” she said quickly, before what courage she had could desert her. “It was before you… before I knew.”

“So I’ve heard. Tyrion tells me you’re going back to Tarth.”

Brienne sighed. Of _course_ he had. Honestly, she didn’t know whether to be annoyed at his brother for divulging the information or grateful she didn’t have to do it herself.

“I am,” she confirmed. “I gave my word to my father.”

Jaime pressed his lips flat and nodded almost imperceptibly. “You’ll make a fine Evenstar, I’m sure, and an even finer Lady Paramount of the Stormlands. I imagine that _will_ still be your title, despite the _ser_.” 

Brienne narrowed her eyes, confused and a bit concerned. Had the head injury made him forget what he’d witnessed in Winterfell? 

“Gendry Baratheon holds the seat of the Stormlands, Jaime. You were there when the Dragon Queen legitimized him.” 

Jaime smirked. “It seems Lord Baratheon’s decision to go haring off after Arya Stark has my brother plotting to move that seat from Storm’s End to Evenfall Hall.”

“ _What_?” Brienne blurted, her eyes stretching wide. “He never mentioned anything of the sort to me.”

He’d proposed they find someone to take temporary stewardship of the title in a small council meeting once before, but he hadn’t said anything about _moving_ it. And certainly nothing about Tarth.

“I’m sure he didn’t,” Jaime said. “I don’t think it even occurred to him until he asked me if I was ready to take my place as Lord Paramount of the Westerlands.”

Though Brienne hadn’t expected to hear it at that moment, the news itself didn’t surprise her. Unless the king decided otherwise, Jaime _was_ still the legal heir to Casterly Rock—not that she believed the idea of ruling over anything appealed to him any more than it did to her.

“He could hardly have planned it more neatly himself,” Jaime went on, steadily holding her gaze. “The Lord of Casterly Rock and the Lady of Evenfall Hall.”

“An heir with strong ties to the east and the west,” she murmured.

“Exactly.” 

Jaime nodded approvingly, and Brienne nearly shook her head back in bewilderment. He seemed so _calm_ about it all—and much less perturbed by his brother’s scheming than he’d been that morning.

He couldn’t possibly be intending to _agree_ to it, could he?

“What did you tell him?” she asked.

“About which part?” 

Before she could answer, the logs burning in the hearth beside them shifted and fell, and the room went suddenly dimmer. Brienne thought she saw a glimmer of amusement in Jaime’s gaze as she turned away from him, and she felt it linger on her back as she took a few quick steps and crouched down to stoke the fire. 

“About which part, Brienne?” Jaime repeated, just as she reached for another piece of wood.

Brienne poked at the coals and the charred, half-burned logs, then stacked the new piece neatly on top. “Ruling the Westerlands. Will you do it?”

“Of course not,” Jaime scoffed from behind her. “I never wanted the Rock, and I still don’t. Tyrion knows that. He only pushed it at me because he knows when I refuse, he’ll be able to guilt me into being his master of war or law instead.” 

She peered back at him over her shoulder. “He asked you to serve on the small council?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “Are you surprised?”

“No,” Brienne replied. “Not at all.” She returned her focus to the fire and added two more sticks of wood, watching the renewed flames lick brightly around them. “I’m sure Lord Tyrion knows you’d do quite well in either post. I only thought…”

“You thought what?”

Rising slowly, Brienne turned to face him, wiping her hands on her gambeson. “You spent a long time in this city, serving a king, and I thought…” She stared at the slightly flat tip of his nose rather than risk meeting his eyes. “I thought you might choose something else, this time. Something _you_ want, rather than what they want for you.” 

“What _I_ want?” Jaime asked, husky and somewhat incredulous. “Surely that’s obvious.”

Startled, Brienne scanned the familiar planes of his face, looking for whatever he thought he was showing her. But it was useless. Nothing about Jaime had _ever_ been obvious—not to her. 

Shaking his head, Jaime stepped closer to her. “Why do you think I’m here, Brienne?” 

Her brow crinkled. “Because I asked Podrick to—”

“No.” Frowning, he moved even closer, until Brienne could feel the heat of him looming against her front, even warmer than the fire crackling at her back. “Here in King’s Landing. Why do you think I came back?”

Brienne’s lips parted to make way for her answer, but she found she didn’t have one. 

At her silence, Jaime blew out a breath that was half huff, half sigh. “Tyrion didn’t tell me, at first, that you’d been appointed to the Kingsguard, but when I found out, I wanted to tear his head off. I couldn’t believe he would do that to you… to _me_. Because I knew you would never break your vows, the way I broke mine. I would never ask you to.”

Brienne pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. She’d never entertained the idea of another man, after Jaime, but would she have been willing to give up the possibility? Would she have agreed to the post, if those had been the terms? 

It made no difference, she supposed. She hadn’t, and they weren’t. The vows in question didn’t exist. 

“I don’t understand why he didn’t tell you the rest,” she said quietly.

“I think he meant to make me suffer, like you had suffered. To feel as though I’d lost you. And it worked,” Jaime muttered, glowering, “but it didn’t keep me away. He must have known it wouldn’t.” His jaw flexed, and the firelight glinted on the silver threading through his beard. “I came here to tell you the truth, Brienne. To beg your forgiveness and try to be… I don’t know. Your friend? We were friends, once, in our way, and I thought we might manage it again. It wasn’t what I _wanted_ , but it was better than nothing.” He shook his head. “But the moment I saw you, I realized I’d been fooling myself. I knew we couldn’t go back.” 

“No,” she whispered. “We can’t.” 

Not after all that had happened. Not after she’d felt the weight of him on top of her, the wet heat of his mouth on her neck, the muscles of his back flexing beneath her palms. 

Not after what the king had said. 

“Good,” he declared with such force and fervor that Brienne’s heartbeat skipped and quickened in her chest. “I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to be your _friend_ or your colleague, making painfully civil conversation across the small council table. I don’t want to watch you hang up your armor and marry some fool of a man who isn’t worthy of you to rule the Stormlands at your side. Not unless it’s me.”

“You’re not a foo—” Brienne’s words died in her throat as his meaning slammed into her like a morningstar. “Is that… are you…?” 

Jaime canted his head. “Am I asking you to marry me?”

She nodded wordlessly, her pulse pounding so hard against her breastbone Brienne thought everyone in the castle must have been able to hear it. 

“Yes, Brienne of Tarth,” he admitted, something raw and exposed and hopeful flashing in his eyes. “I believe I am.”

Brienne pulled in a shallow, shaky breath. “Jaime, I…” She had never wanted to say _yes_ so badly in all her life, but she couldn’t. Not without being _sure_ he understood. “You don’t have to, you know, just because the king said—”

“For fuck’s sake, Brienne,” Jaime growled, sounding more frustrated than angry, “this isn’t about what the king said.” He looked away from her, down toward the hearth, his jaw working silently for a fraught, endless moment. “I never told you what happened when the Red Keep fell.”

“I know what happened,” she said slowly, perplexed by his abrupt change of course. “You nearly died.”

“Yes. I was certain I would, when the ceiling caved in. There was pain, and the world went dark.” He glanced up at her, the silvery blue at the centers of his eyes glowing like starbursts. “And then I dreamed of you.” 

A strange lightness filled Brienne’s limbs, until it hardly felt like they were still attached to her. “You did?”

Jaime bobbed his head. “We were together, naked in some sort of dark, terrible cavern. We had our swords, though,” he told her, his eyes sliding out of focus, “and the blades were on fire. My father and Cersei were there, too, and Joffrey and Tommen and Myrcella, Ned Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, Arthur Dayne and the White Bull. Others, too, in the shadows—more than I could count. All the people I’d failed.” Jaime grimaced. “My family walked away, leaving me to the dark, and the rest swept in to make me pay for all I’d done. But you…” His gaze sharpened once more on her face. “I’d failed you, too, but still you stood at my side, swearing that you’d keep me safe, Oathkeeper burning bright even after my sword went out.” 

Brienne’s chin trembled, and, for once, she didn’t fight it. “How did it end?” 

“You drove back the darkness,” Jaime said hoarsely, shifting closer still. “You always have.” 

The room blurred, dissolving into watery points of orange and yellow light as tears flooded her eyes. 

“The next thing I remember,” he continued, his voice smoother now, “was opening my eyes and seeing Tyrion there, feeling his hands on my face. But it wasn’t my brother that I wanted, Brienne.” He reached up to touch her cheek. “It was you.” 

A tear slipped out, then, wending a warm trail across her skin and catching on the corner of her mouth. Jaime brushed it away with his thumb.

“It’s been you for a very long time. Longer than I knew.” His own eyes were glassy now, and filled with such tenderness and regret and longing and _love_ that Brienne almost couldn’t breathe. “I should have known when I jumped into that damned bear pit for you. When I was willing to let the Blackfish march his army out of Riverrun just because you asked me to. When I rode north to Winterfell because if I was going to die, I wanted it to be as a man of honor fighting next to you.” 

“Jaime…” she rasped, tears flowing freely down her face. 

_It’s been you for me, too_ , she thought _, for at least that long_. Unlike him, she _had_ known it, but there had been many times she’d wished she hadn’t. 

“I hope it can be enough that I know now,” he said fiercely. “I hope it’s not too late.”

Brienne lifted her hand and set it against his chest, marveling at the racing of his heart. “It’s not too late.” 

“No?”

“No.”

And then, because she couldn’t bear the idea of _not_ doing it, Brienne curled her fingers in his shirt and tipped forward to press her lips to his.

The kiss wasn’t quick or forceful or greedy, and Jaime had plenty of time to pull away. But he didn’t. He just huffed against her damp cheek and stepped into her, wrapping his free arm around her waist—heedless of the studded fabric of her gambeson—to tug her closer. 

When he finally pulled his mouth away, it was only far enough to rest his forehead against hers. “I need you to know that I don’t care what the king says, or what my brother wants for the damned kingdom. I don’t care if we never have any children, or if we have half a dozen girls just to spite them.” His hand curved around the back of her neck. “Or even if we have a boy that’s as good as Bran Stark says he’ll be and they make him king.” 

Brienne leaned back to look at him. “It doesn’t worry you?”

“I’d be a fool if it didn’t,” he acknowledged. “But Tyrion was right. It would be different this time, with you. He would be my son. Our son.” His eyebrows lowered. “But none of it matters if that’s not the life _you_ would choose. I won’t have you wedding me out of duty, Brienne.”

She shook her head softly. “It wouldn’t be duty, Jaime. It would be…”

Her heart swelled as she thought of it—of Tarth and the children and Jaime’s wide, delighted smile. 

It was there now, on his face, as his thumb stroked gently along her jaw. “Is that a yes, then?” 

Brienne smiled tremulously back at him. “Yes, Jaime. It is.” 

She’d barely gotten the words out when Jaime surged up to kiss her again, rougher this time, with a desperation she couldn’t help but return. His hand slid into her hair as his stump found her hip, and Brienne slipped her arms around him, anchoring him to her, not wanting to let go.

And she didn’t, at least not until some minutes later when Jaime drew her back toward the door, and Brienne had to release him in order to manage the stairs. 

As she climbed them, with the warmth of Jaime’s hand filling her palm, Brienne’s thoughts drifted to what he’d said about the future. She couldn’t say that she agreed with him—she _did_ care what it held, very much—but she also understood what he’d meant. The details didn’t matter, not precisely, not as long as he was with her. 

And if the king was right, if each beginning really _did_ have many possible endings, then she and Jaime could make theirs whatever they chose. 

Whatever they chose. 


End file.
